Heat causes Khagrachhari mangoes to drop

A large number of buds raised Mongsetu Chowdhury’s hopes for a good harvest at his mango orchard on a 10-hectare piece of land at Jaduram Para in Khagrachhari’s Sadar Upazila. The mangoes did grow green, but 60 percent have dropped as the fruit is stressed by excessive heat, a damage called fruit drop in agriculture. The young man is now trying to save the rest of the mangoes with the harvesting season approaching. “I may still make some profit if I can save the remaining mangoes. But chances are slim if the heat keeps scorching the fruit,” he said. Although it is difficult to arrange irrigation in the hilly area, Mongsetu and his helping hands Prakash Nanda Tripura and Polin Tripura are working day and night to spray water on the mango trees.Hlashingmong Chowdhury has more than 30 varieties of mango, including Amropali, Miyazaki and American Palmer, in his 14-hectare orchard in the Dhumnighat area of Mohalchari. “It’s difficult to keep the mangoes in the trees because of excessive heat. The ground beneath the trees is full of dropped mangoes. More than 40 percent of the mangoes have dropped,” he said. The rate of fruit drop is very high this year with no chance for irrigation in the hilly areas, he said. “We’ll face losses because of fruit dropping if there’s no rain in a few days,” fears Hlashingmong Chowdhury. Sujon Chakma is a big mango farmer with an orchard spanning more than 40 hectares in the Chattogram Hill Tracts district. He said the mangoes are not so large this year because of adverse weather conditions. “And whatever mangoes we had, they are dropping because of the heat.”“The mangoes will ripen fast as well. We will have to harvest the mangoes by the end of May while in the past, we usually collected mangoes in mid-June,” he said. Altaf Hossain, chief scientific officer at Khagrachhari Hill Agriculture Research Station, said there is apparently no way to stop fruit drop as long as irrigation is difficult in the hills. “Still, we’ve advised the farmers to spray water on the trees every other day,” he said. He also advised the farmers to choose a location near a waterbody while setting up an orchard. The farmers in Khagrachhari have cultivated mangoes on 3,750 hectares of land this season, according to Rasirul Alam, acting deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension in the district. “We’ve distributed leaflets among the farmers to raise awareness about the dangers of the heat. There’s no alternative to spraying water on the trees regularly. The rate of fruit drop will decrease once sufficient rains take place,’ he said.
Published on: 2024-04-26 19:15:36.667209 +0200 CEST