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| Cultivation of superior harad -A boon for farmers of rainfed region of Jammu | | |
K.K.Sood and S.Sehgal
Harad also known as Rheed (Terminalia chebula) in Dogri, an important multipurpose and medicinal tree species occurring mainly in from sub-temperate to tropical region of India.
The species can be grown in areas with low rainfall where most of the other tree species fail to survive. It occurs in subtropical to almost subtemperate zone of Jammu and Kashmir.
The fruits are used locally in many medicines and are an important constituent of ‘Triphala’ (a medicinal digestive stew) and commercially used in many Ayurvedic medicines to treat heart burn, flatulence, dyspepsia, liver and spleen disorders, asthama and constipation. The tree is lopped for leaves to feed the livestock during winter when other green fodder is very scarce.
The leaves contain 1.73% nitrogen (equivalent to 10.80% protein content) and 2.75%. calcium. The rainfed regions of Jammu and Kashmir are marked by either by crop failure or poor crop productivity leading to low income from the crops.
In such a situation farm diversification through on-farm cultivation of trees is one of the options to boost the income of the farmers. Hard tree cultivation is one of the options in such a situation. The farmers of rainfed region collect the fruits from hard tree growing naturally on their farms and sell them to traders from outside the state. The advantage of this species is hat fruits of this species can be stored for longer time after drying than many other species the fruits of which are perishable.
However, farmers of this region are reluctant to go for its cultivation due to its longer fruit yielding period (20-25 years), smaller fruit size which fetches lower price in the market (large sized fruit fetches higher price in native and international market), poor natural germination owing to collection of its seeds from wild and hard seed coat.
Thus a more productive planting stock with lower fruit yielding period and comparatively large fruit size was realized. To overcome these problems the Division of Agroforestry SKUAST-Jammu has done considerable research to standardize it fruit collection time and seed treatment to enhance germination, selection of superior plants yielding large sized fruits, grafting and planting methods to produce quality planting stock.
Cultivation
For better germination of the seeds of the Arad he farmers should collect its seeds from beginning of February to mid March when they are fully ripe. Before sowing, break its kernel (hard fruit) and take out the seeds or keep the seeds in cowdung for 45 days to enhance it germination.
The farmers should prepare the nursery beds digging them 30-45 cm deep and removing all the pebbles, weeds and undesirable material. Farmers can also doing the sowing of seeds in polythene bags filled with soil, sand and farm yard manure mixed in 1:1:1 ratio. Thereafter the sowing of the seeds should be done in the month of April and regular watering and weeding should be done to prepare the roostock for further grafting. The seeds can also be sown in the polythene bags filled with mixture of soil, sand and farm yard manure (deshi aihal) in ratio of 1:1:1. This will produce the rootstock for grating.
In the mean time the farmers should indentify the trees bearing large sized fruit. The scion (small branch sticks with buds/bud wood) should be taken from these identified plants in month of April just before the initiation of budding in them and should be grafted on to 1.5-2 years old rootstock using cleft grafting.
The root stock collar diameter should be 1.5-2.5 cm at the time of grafting for better its success. This will assist in reducing the fruit yielding period from 25 years to almost 6-8 years and also would produce large sized fruits providing higher price to the farmers.
The plants obtained by this method in the Division of Agroforestry (SKUAST-Jammu) have started bearing fruits almost 6th year and on average a yield of 10-15 kg of fresh fruits is being obtained per year (photograph). The yield is expected to increase with the age of the plants.
The fruits of grafted Harad are fetching 2-3 times higher price than those obtained from naturally growing trees of this plant. The Division of Agroforestry has encouraged farmers’ of Ranjan, Mathwar and Manwal areas to cultivate the grafted Harad and farmers have started selling fruits to the contractors since last couple of years. Its cultivation is further catching up among other neighboring areas.
The pit size for planting this species should be 2 feet deep and 2 feet wide. The pits for planting this species should done with onset of the rainy season and top half soil should be kept one side and lower half on the other side. While refilling the pits the soil of upper half kept aside should be put back first in the pit and followed by the lower half. The pit filling level should be slightly lower than surrounding ground level to conserve the moisture.
The planting should be done immediately within first fortnight of onset of the monsoon so that seedlings get properly established and need to water them later is eliminated or minimized.
The shortening of the fruit yielding period and obtaining of large sized fruits would encourage farmers to grow this species to diversify the farming and increase the income of the farmers in the rainfed areas. The cultivation of this grafted Harad will prove a boon to farmers of rainfed areas of Jammu region due to shortened fruiting period and large sized fruits in the coming years. |
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