How to Grow Apples in Hot Climate? Award-Winning Farmers Reap Success With Unique Variety |
Originally reported and written in May 2023, this story has been republished as part of our archival content.
“Ever since people have come to know that apples are growing on my farm, I have had a stream of visitors,” says Kakasaheb Sawant of Antral village in Sangli’s (Maharashtra) Jath taluka, proudly standing beside the row of bushes heavy with fruits.
Jath taluka, bordering Karnataka, is predominantly sunny, with temperatures in the summer reaching 43 degrees Celsius. In the winter, the temperature doesn’t cross the 27 degrees mark. Gifted with sandy-loamy soil, the rainfall is limited to just 30 days a year, averaging 560 mm. In such adverse conditions, Sawant has been able to grow apples (locally known as safarchand) and those visiting his farm consider it no less than a miracle.
People laughed at him when he decided he would grow the fruit in Konkan, recalls the 44-year-old, who runs a successful nursery of fruit and forest trees that he established in 2010 after bidding goodbye to his job as an automobile mechanic.
It was sometime in early 2020 that Sawant bought 150 saplings of HRMN-99 apples — an all-terrain apple variety developed by Himachal Pradesh native Hariman Sharma.
The genesis of the all-terrain variety
It was sometime in 1999 that Sharma observed a fruit bearing apple seedling in his courtyard at Paniala village of Bilaspur district, which is situated 1,800 feet from sea level. Being an innovative farmer, he could sense that it was an extraordinary event. He persevered and grew several grafts of the same.
“After working as a labourer in other farms for many years. In 1998, I started nurturing mango orchards........