A good spell of snow this winter, resulting in bumperproduction of stone fruits like plum, apricots, cherry and peaches has given amajor reason to cheer to fruit growers and orchard owners of Kashmir Valley.Sharingtentative figures, officials said there has been an overall increase of 15-20percent, with growers claiming that fruit production doubled as comparison tolast year.

“God has been very kind to us this year. My production hasincreased by 40-50 percent. I have reaped 15,000 boxes of plum as compared to8,000 last year,” said Mohammad Ashraf Mir, who owns a plum and apple farm onthe outskirts of Srinagar.Mir said the bumper production is due to amplesnowfall this winter which delayed the blooming of the plum, giving the cropminimum chilling hours to help absorb nutrients and prevent shedding of leavesbesides killing the pest. The snow also helped the manure compost to set well.

“The flowering of the trees got delayed due to coldtemperatures. As the trees bloomed, the temperature had already improvedmoderately which didn’t harm the budding flowers, leading to good production,”he said.Farmers pick fresh plums from a tree in an orchard, on the outskirts ofSrinagar, on Thursday, July 18, 2019.Another grower Abdul Rashid said thoughthe size of the fruit has marginally reduced this year, the production was notcompromised and has been in surplus.

“When there is heavy production, the size of plum decreases.But that does not affect our returns,” Rashid said. Majority of the plums grownin the Valley are exported to other parts of the state, particularly to marketsin Delhi.“We are getting around Rs 200-250 per box for big sized plums whilethe rate is Rs 150-200 for small sized fruit,” he said.

Besides plum, other stone fruits like apricot have alsoyielded good output. “This year, we have a good crop (apricot) compared to lastthree years. We are not only making good sale here in the state but have alsosent the fruit to other parts of the country,” said Nazir Ahmad Khan of northKashmir’s Kupwara who owns an apricot orchard.A farmer putting plums in a boxesfor export in an orchard, on the outskirts of Srinagar, on Thursday, July 18,2019. Kashmir is witnessing a bumper production of plum this year owing to goodsnowfall in the winter. ( Waseem Andrabi / HT Photo )

In Kashmir, apricots are grown on 2,880 hectares, cherry on2,713 hectares, plum on 1,427 hectares and peach on 714 hectares of land.

According to official figures, the Valley witnessed 16,156metric tonne (MT) of apricots (with 12,686 MT in Ladakh alone), 11,789 MT ofcherries, 7,710 MT of plums and 2,714 MT of peaches in the year 2018-19.Deputydirector (central), horticulture, Mohammad Yousuf Dar said his field reportssuggest a good increase than last year.“We can’t give you the exact figures asit will take 15 more days but the production has certainly increased by atleast 15 percent or more,” he said. Similar estimates were shared by directorhorticulture, planning and marketing, Shahnawaz Bukhari who said the productionhas increased by around 20 percent than last season“It was a bumper production.We also exported around 4,500 MT to other states by road, train and air,” hesaid. Dar said the main reason for bumper produce has been “conducive climaticconditions”.

“There was good snowfall this season which delayed theblooming. If there is early dip in temperature after blooming then theproduction decreases. We escaped that factor,” he said.