To restrict further crop damage caused by dry weather
Bengaluru :
The recent pre-monsoon rainfall in key coffee growing regions of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu is expected to help restrict damage to the 2016-17 crop, which has been impacted by the prolonged and higher than usual temperatures and delayed blossom showers.
The rainfall over the past few days has provided some relief to growers of arabicas, the premium and mild coffee variety, besides being seen as beneficial for the pepper crop, largely grown as a key intercrop in the coffee estates and arecanut plantations in the region.
“The plantation districts of Coorg, Chikmagalur and Hassan have received widespread rains over the past few days. The rainfall will help contain the damage caused by the delayed arrival of blossom showers,” said Baba PS Bedi, Chairman of the Karnataka Planters Association.
Blossom rain
Timely arrival of pre-monsoon showers is crucial for the blossoming of the coffee floral buds. Traditionally, the robusta and arabica variety growing areas should receive pre-monsoon showers for a good blossom by March 15 and April 15 respectively.
However, the blossom showers were delayed this year and were erratic in some areas, thereby hurting the prospects of the robusta variety. “It is too early to quantify the impact of delayed showers on robustas,” Bedi said.
Though some growers had taken up sprinkler irrigation for the robustas, the inadequate availability of water due to deficient rainfall in the last two years did pose a challenge to them. The coffee growing regions started receiving widespread rainfall from the first week of May, and some regions continue to receive rains. “It rained even today,” said N Bose Mandanna, a large grower in Suntikoppa near Madikeri in Coorg, on Thursday.
The rain has helped Arabica blossom and the crop should be good, provided there is no significant incidence of the pest – the white stem borer, Mandanna said. However, the delayed rainfall has already hurt the prospects of robustas in some areas, which cannot be reversed.
“It has been raining in most of the growing areas in Karnataka where coffee has blossomed,” said Y Raghuramulu, Director of the Balehonnur-based Central Coffee Research Institute. The rain should help in setting of the crop. Even the coffee growing areas of Tamil Nadu have received rain since last week, which is very good for the arabica crop, he said.
Crop estimate
“If only the rains had arrived two to three weeks earlier, there would not have been much impact,” Raghuramulu said, adding that the Coffee Board has started the estimating the crop size for 2016-17 based on the blossom, which is likely to be finalised by end-June.
After two years of good harvest, coffee is facing an off-year for the 2016-17 season starting October. The Coffee Board has estimated the 2015-16 crop at 3.5 lakh tonnes, a 7 per cent increase over the previous year’s 3.27 lakh tonnes.n
source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> Economy> Agri-Business / by Vishwanath Kulkarni / May 12th, 2016
