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An orchard at home
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There are special varieties of mango, sapota, citrus, guava and banana that are ideal for a home garden. Some suggestions for planting and after care.
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A HOME orchard prevents pollution, provides nutritional wealth and requires less attention. It will keep the environs cool.
Some of the varieties suitable for a home orchard are:
Mango: Dwarf hybrid varieties like Amarpalli and Malliga are regular bearers. They grow up to 1.5 m-2 m, yield from the fourth year of planting and bear 15 times more fruits than the usual varieties.
Sapota: The cricket ball kind bears the largest fruit. Pala is oval, thin-skinned and bears in clusters. Kirtibharti fruits are egg-shaped, very sweet and have a rough, thick skin.
The main fruiting seasons are from February-June and September-October. Summer fruits are sweeter. A small quantity of fruits can be harvested throughout the year.
Sapota is usually free from pests and diseases. The yield varies from 1,500-2,000 fruits per tree, except cricket ball, which yields 500 fruits.
Citrus: Sweet orange citrus grows up to 4m and yields 500-600 fruits per tree. Malta is a shrub, which starts yielding from the second year of planting. Free from pests and diseases, it yields 50 kg per plant.
Banana: Tissue culture plantlets of Robusta, Cavendish and Red Banana, produce uniform fruits with a good keeping quality.
Guava: The Lucknow-49 variety of guava has large-sized fruits that have a crisp pulp and are acidic sweet. The dwarf-spreading variety yields 250-300 kg per tree.
Papaya: The papaya variety, Co3, produces small, sweet fruits. It flowers in 40 days and takes 270-290 days for the first harvest.
Minor fruits like West Indian Cherry, Amla and Jamun can also be cultivated.
Planting is generally done with a ball of earth at the start of the rainy season on a rain-free day.
Planting is done in a previously exposed pit, filled with sand to a depth of 18 cm, using a mixture of 1:2:1 of FYM, red earth and river sand with 1 cm of top soil for mango, guava etc. and 0.5 cm for papaya, banana and other minor fruits.
Before planting, 25 kg of decomposed farmyard manure and 1 kg of neem cake should be applied.
Watering should be done immediately after planting. Plants that are less than two years old require watering every third or fourth day and those that are two to five years old need watering every 10-12 days in winter and once a week in summer.
Copious irrigation is essential during the fruiting season. Pruning must be done before a tree starts flowering. In the first one or two years of a tree's life, prune heavily to shape the structure of the tree.
Young trees need only a small amount of fertilizer. Do not encourage the plants to bear fruits for two or three years after planting.
Quality planting materials are available at the State Horticulture Farms of the Horticulture Department.
K. THANIGAIMANI
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