Those who are wary of eating mangoes over an apprehension that the fruits might have been ripened using carbide, a chemical substance, here are some good news. The government horticulture farm at Sundaramudayan near Mandapam in Ramanthapuram district has come out with a plan to promote planting of mango saplings in each and every house in south Tamil Nadu.
If people plant a mango graft now, they can taste naturally grown and ripened mangos within three years. To boost the mango production, the horticulture farm has begun a massive exercise to raise one lakh mango grafts.
A team of experienced workers from Dharmapuri district, renowned for its mangoes, has been brought to the farm for vegetative mango grafting by joining root stock with mother plants. Root stocks have also been brought from Dharmapuri. Since the current climate is conducive for speedy growth, they have been asked to work from dawn to dusk to complete the process.
“We plan to make available top-end mango varieties to each and every household in southern districts. There is already a huge demand for mango grafting. People want to have at least one fruit-bearing tree in their houses and it will be exploited in the best possible manner,” said T. Anandraj, Project Director, Ramanathapuram District Development Agency (RDDA), which runs the horticulture farm at Sundaramudayan.
People could get grafted mango varieties such as Imam Pasand, Malliga, Banganapalli, Alphonsa, Bangaloora, and Senthura. The grafting made in Sundaramaudayan farm was most sought after owing to the high survival rate of the saplings.
S. Nagarajan, Horticulture Officer, said that the farm would not encourage growing mango seedlings as it was not a successful formula for farmers to reap benefit quickly. It would take a minimum of seven to eight years to bear fruits. In the vegetative grafting, the flowering would start within a year. They could harvest within three years. Moreover, it would give maximum genetic purity.
He added that it would take 90 days for completing mango grafting. Since they were being grown at a tough climatic condition in the district, they naturally developed the strength to withstand or adopt conditions in other parts of the State. The high chances of survival of mango plants produced from the farm had given a special name to the farm.
