News reporting by Suchi Giridhar.
New Delhi May 29:
A self-pollinating apple cultivar (cultivated variety) that does not require extensive chilling hours for flowering and fruit setting has found wide acceptance across India and is also being exported to many countries. Commercial farming of this variety has begun in the states of Manipur, Jammu, Himachal Pradesh’s low-lying areas, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana.
What sets this variety of apples apart?
Apple trees are known to grow in cold climates with long chilling hours, which are necessary for flowering and fruit development. This variety, on the other hand, does not require any chilling time. This self-pollinating type has thrived when tested in India’s plains, tropical, and subtropical regions, where summer temperatures can reach 40-45 degrees Celsius.
How did the farmer achieve this?
This variety is named as HRMN99 after farmer Shri Hariman Sharma who toiled from 1998 to establish it as a novel variety. He serendipitously discovered that seeds from an apple he has purchased had germinated in his backyard in Bilaspur. Having a keen interest in horticulture, he sensed that an apple plant growing at an altitude of just 1,800 feet from sea level is extraordinary as apples need extreme cold climates for a good yeild.
Preserving the plant in his backyard as the mother plant, he started experimenting by grafting the young shoots and by 2005 he had created a mini apple orchard in his backyard. He tried to persuade people about this rare apple type, but he was unsuccessful because growing apples in the tropics was thought to be impossible. In 2017, the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) recognised his work and awarded him the Grassroots Innovator award. They also assisted him in confirming his claims and assessing the variety’s potential by facilitating molecular, diversity analysis, and fruit quality testing. NIF also assisted in the registration of this variety under the Plant Variety Protection and Farmers Rights Act of 2001.
