Heat wave may shrink yield and earning of K’taka mango farmers

There are not many buyers, growers this year

By Hamsaveni N

Rising temperature in Karnataka this year has affected the production of mangoes. Experts say there is going to be a 40 per cent decrease in production.

The Meteorological Department has hinted at a heat wave with temperatures increasing by 2-3 degrees Celsius over the normal temperature in southern parts of Karnataka. In coastal Karnataka, the maximum temperature has touched 40 degrees Celsius during this month.

Erratic rain in December 2022 caused mango flowers to fall. The current fruit is the second round, which is getting affected by an unexpected increase in temperature, thus alarming farmers to a large extent.

Mango farmers, who went through a bad phase for the past two years, have no hope things will get better this year.

Shiva, a mango dealer who owns three acres of grove in

Kolar, informed The Observer he is expecting just half of the harvest. “The yield is not that great. This summer is making it even worse. Our trees lost a lot of mango flowers in the rain of December-January. Now, because of the heat, the mango has shrunk. There is a lot of wastage. Another major impact of the heat wave is that the customers aren’t buying mangoes because of health concerns.”

A mango seller in K.R. Market said there are few buyers this year, causing a large amount of the yield to rot.

G.K. Charan Raj, a mango buyer and seller in the K.R. Puram, said the estimated price for the local produce is very less this year. “The minimum base price for mangoes is not more than Rs 20 a kg. In the previous months, fruits were brought from other states because our local mangoes were unavailable. As of now, the mangoes in the market are less than last year.’’

Siddaraju Putte Gowda, assistant director, horticulture, Ramanagara, said that in the second round of flowering this year, there has been a 50 per

Wonders

cent decrease in production. “Mangoes will reach the peak season during the first week of May. The average price we are expecting is Rs 30 a kg. The fruit will reach the market a little late this year.”

Siddaraju said farmers are moving away from the mango crop, and few farmers are taking up mango cultivation. “In Ramanagara, the total coverage of mango crop under horticulture land is 33,000 hectares. Out of that, only 400 to 500 hectares was used for growing mangoes.”

Thimmegowda, a horticulture climate expert from the Gandhi Krishi Vigyana Kendra, explained: “Mango is currently in the bearing stage. There are no chances of them suffering a 50 percent loss (as they are saying), but there are chances of them suffering a 35 per cent loss owing to unpredicted rainfall. The process of photosynthesis gets disturbed due to excessive heat. This leads to the shrinking of the fruit that eventually leads to diseases and fungus, and further impacts customers’ preferences.”

Experts say if the rain expected this week is heavy, then the mango crop will be affected. Excessive rain or heat is always a problem for crops like mango, hamsaveni.n@iijnm.org