CANACONA
A farmer in Canacona tasted success and achieved good yield of strawberries after taking up the cultivation of the ‘winter down variety’ for the first time on a trial basis.
According to Canacona Zonal Agriculture Officer Kirtiraj Naikgaunkar, a young farmer Balchandra Shirodkar took up cultivation of the ‘winter down variety’ of strawberries and cultivated it under shednet in a first-time attempt and that too under local conditions.
The experiment was tried with 500 plants in an area of around 300 square metres which was manually irrigated. The test attempt proved successful with the farmer getting approximately one kilogram of strawberries despite taking up the cultivation a bit late and in spite of this year’s erratic winter weather.
Buoyed with the success of Shirodkar, the agricultural officer said
this ‘winter down variety’ showed a lot of promise and could now be tried in hilly and high altitude areas.
“We tasted huge success in this ‘winter down variety’ of strawberry cultivation. Farmers can now try this type of cultivation in the hilly and high altitude areas of Khotigao and Gaondongrim”, Naikgaunkar said.
“If the present cultivation in a bit of saline condition has come up so well, we believe it has got good scope in hilly and high altitude areas. Certainly, we will be taking up cultivation of strawberries in more areas next week”, he said.
According to Canacona agriculture office, farmers in Sanguem and Valpoi had tried a similar method but the production wasn't promising as expected.
Strawberry plants usually take two months to grow and after flowering in 4 to 6 weeks fruits are ready to harvest.
Incidentally, Director of Agriculture Neville Alphonso especially drove down to Canacona and made it a point to visit the strawberry shednet at Kolsar in Poinguinim.
