Mango trees at the Bihar Agriculture University, Sabour, orchard. Picture by Amit Kumar

Bhagalpur, May 29: The fate of an old orchard has transformed with the rejuvenation process adopted by scientists of Bihar Agriculture University (BAU), Sabour.

An old mango orchard, containing 30 to 40 year old trees that have lost its high-yield capacity, could revive its maximum yielding capacity through the rejuvenation process.

Rabati Raman Singh, associate professor and in-charge of the garden at BAU, said the rejuvenation process includes pruning where the unwanted part of the upper portions of a tree is cut short by power pruning machines. Then a special paste known as bodopest prepared with copper sulphate and lime is applied on the pruned parts. In absence of the bodopest, one can use a pest prepared with cow dung, Singh said.

The cut portions are covered with strips taken out from jute bags to avoid any possible infection. Proper manure and irrigation is essential after that.

After one to two weeks, new leaves and branches start growing from the pruned parts of the tree, which grow up and start giving fruits again. Singh said the university has, for the first time, experimented on around 500 mango trees across more than five acres of orchard inside the campus.

He said: “Pruning includes cutting the upper portion of old trees from 4-metre height during December-January. Pruning can be done only in winter when the temperature is low.” He said unwanted parts of the new branches could also be removed just to give the growth of the trees a proper shape. Moreover, one can plant some other varieties of new plants on the pruned parts of the trees.

“Suppose if anyone grafted a different variety of mango in Jardalu mango tree, you could enjoy the different varieties of fruits along with Jardalu. You may enjoy different varieties of mango from June to August simultaneously grown from a single tree,” he said. Singh said after the rejuvenation process, the life of an orchard gets extended by another 20 to 30 years. It also revives the capacity of its productivity. He said the process could be applied with guava, amla and litchi trees.

Kumar added that the varsity has now decided to start special training programmes for the farmers so that they are able to enjoy bumper yield from their old orchards with the rejuvenation process. He said the varsity received many complaints from the farmer whose trees had lost its productivity, as they had aged.