Extreme heat is making mango and litchi fruitlets drop in Meherpur. If this continues, orchard owners are expected to face heavy losses. The hostile weather, cool at night and scorching by day, is causing the fruitlets to fall, and a crop failure is feared this season. Orchard owners and leaseholders are in trouble.

According to the Chuadanga weather office, the country's highest temperatures have been recorded in Chuadanga and Meherpur, at 40C to above 42C. Mango and litchi trees naturally flowered on 65 per cent this season, with new leaves on the rest. The weather is now unfavourable for mango and litchi, so yields may fall somewhat this year.

According to the Meherpur district Department of Agricultural Extension, litchi orchards cover 800 hectares, growing Ati, Bombai, Chili Bombai, Ata Bombai and China-3 varieties. The litchi production target this year is 8,500 tonnes. Mango orchards cover 3,336 hectares, with Langra, Bombai, Himsagar, Fazli, Amrapali, Gopalbhog, Haribhanga and other varieties.

Visits to orchards this week found that Kola village in Sadar upazila has mostly Langra, Himsagar and Bombai mango trees, with heaps of fallen fruit beneath them. In Amjhupi, Baradi, Harirampur, Kaligangni, Shyampur, Ujalpur and Kulbaria in Sadar upazila, and Nowapara, Saharbati, Tetulbaria and Bamundi in Gangni upazila, green litchi trees are covered with yellow blossom, and fruitlets have formed on some. Fruitlets are dropping everywhere in the orchards. Growers are trying various ways to stop it, some spraying pesticide and others spraying water.

Mango and litchi grower Sakhawat Hossain said: "Meherpur's Himsagar and Bombai mangoes are prized across the country. Bombai, Mozaffar and local litchis are grown here. Every year wholesale traders buy the orchards' fruit before the season starts and then pick and market it themselves. This season the yield is low; flowering is half of last year. The weather is bad for litchi now, cold and misty at night and scorching by day, so lots of fruitlets drop every day. Wholesalers are not buying orchards for fear of losses, leaving growers in deep trouble."

Rokonuzzaman, an orchard owner in Kola village in the Amjhupi area of Meherpur Sadar, said: "I have mango orchards of various varieties on 6 bighas. The Himsagar trees have not flowered as hoped compared with last year. The fruitlets are dropping in the extreme heat. We are irrigating as agriculture officials advise, but spraying various fungicides has not helped much."

Arshed Ali, an orchard owner in the same village, said: "I have a litchi orchard on five and a half bighas, including one and a half bighas of early Ati litchi, whose branch tips are covered in blossom. The rest has Ata Bombai trees, which have also flowered. But the tips of the fruitlets are drying and they fall with the slightest wind. There will be a litchi crop failure this year."

Moklesur Rahman, a seasonal mango and litchi trader from Faridpur district, said: "As soon as the trees flowered I leased 30 bighas of mango orchards and 15 bighas of litchi orchards in several areas of the district. But the fruitlets are dropping and there is no way to stop it. A few more days of heat and traders will face a big disaster."

Rakibul Hasan, senior observer at the Chuadanga weather office, said Meherpur recorded its highest temperature this year at 42.7C. There has been no rain for a long time and this is affecting crops, but it cannot be said when conditions will ease.

Bijoy Krishna Haldar, deputy director of the Meherpur district Department of Agricultural Extension, said: "The mango fruitlets are dropping because of the intense heat. The agriculture department is advising growers. In orchards where mango and litchi fruitlets are dropping, boron should be sprayed in moderate doses in the afternoon and water given at the base of the trees. That will stop the drop. Regular irrigation is also needed."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.