After growers of groundnut, maize, toor dal, sunflower and onion, mango growers in the district too are now facing the threat of incurring losses owing to low yield in the wake of adverse climatic conditions.
In Chitradurga district, mango is grown on 3,048 hectares (ha) of land. The largest area under cultivation is in Holalkere taluk (1,605 ha). In Chitradurga it is 175 ha, Challakere 478 ha, Hiriyur 354 ha, Hosadurga 374 ha and Molkalmuru 212 ha. The farmers here grow different variety mangoes such as Raspuri, Sindhoor, Alphonso and Ratnagiri.
According to official sources, the groundwater table in the district has depleted owing to extreme heat conditions during summer. Temperature almost crossed 40 degrees Celsius during mid summer and there was no rain also for the fifth consecutive year. Owing to these reasons, the yield of mango fruit may decrease considerably.
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Flowering happens in September and October and it has occurred on only 40 per cent of the trees. Based on this, officials of the Horticulture Department have predicted that the yield might be reduced to 60 per cent.
Venkatesh, a grower from Hiriyur taluk, said that flowering had not occurred on most of the 100 mango trees on his farmland owing to scanty rainfall in the last season. Another factor was the heatwave conditions during summer which resulted in depletion of groundwater table.
The fruit may not bring profits to the growers in the coming season as the size, taste and quality would be affected, he added.
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