Chennai has the right weather for many fruit-bearing trees, but lack of rain and poor upkeep has left government nurseries without saplings.
If you are a tree lover who wishes to raise fruit bearing trees in your backyard, here is good news and bad news: With just a few square foot of land you can have some trees, but the gov ernment horticulture nurseries just don’t have enough saplings.
Fruit-bearing tree saplings such as mango, jackfruit, guava, pomegranate, sapodilla and custard apple are supposed to be sold in the department-owned nursery in Aathur, a village near Chengalpet. One has to travel nearly 60km to the south on the GST Road and another 2.8km west after reaching Chengalpet town to get to the nursery .
A visit to the place on Wednesday revealed that the nursery right now has only mango tree saplings and each sapling is priced at `50. This is one of the oldest horticulture nurseries, started in 1961. The dilapidated building inside the nursery reflects the state of affairs. Take a walk around and the wilting saplings show the impact of acute water scarcity in Kancheepuram district due to monsoon failure last year. Local people said an attempt was made to sink bore wells inside the premises at a depth of 350ft recently, but it failed to fetch water.
When contacted, horticulture department officials said fruit-bearing tree saplings are sold in four nurseries in Kancheepuram district. In Chennai there is nursery in Madhavaram, where one could get flowering, ornamental flowers and avenue species of tree saplings. The one in Kilpauk has been converted into a training centre and the one in Tiruvanmiyur now sells only manure.
“The nurseries in Kancheepuram sow the seeds of fruit bearing trees in May every year. After grafting, it takes at least three months for the saplings to be ready for sale. Quality saplings are sold only between September and March and some of the additionally raised saplings would be available for sale beyond March,” an official said. In order to overcome the water shortage, the department has created two pools inside its Madhavaram nursery , where rainwater was stored. This helped in recharging the groundwater table there.
Interestingly , a private nursery just opposite the horticulture nursery in Aathur has a variety of fruitbearing tree saplings, but at a higher price. A Banganapalli mango species sapling here is sold at Rs400 and that of a jack fruit at Rs700. J R Babu, owner of the nursery , said the mango seeds come from Seemandra and the jack fruit from Virudhachalam in Cuddalore.”I also faced water shortage this time. I drilled a bore well and was lucky to strike water at 350ft,” he said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by P. Oppili, TNN / April 02nd, 2015