This year’s apple crop in India’s Jammu and Kashmir is looking like a good one after mild temperatures and good rainfall during the growing season.
Earlier varieties appear to be the big winners in the Kashmir valley, ANI.
“This year weather was favourable. The apple production is good and moreover quality and colour of apples grown is also nice,” apple grower Lateef told ANI.
“We are sending them to other countries and also within country to Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta.”
The early hazaratbali apple variety matures in mid-July, and represents about 20 per cent of the region’s production, according to Manzoor Ahmed of the local horticulture department.
The Kashmir valley’s total apple production last year tallied up to 1.35m tonnes from the 125,000ha under cultivation.
As the apple season picks up, so too does demand for the wooden packing boxes most commonly used to transport them. Those boxes could cost more this year because of export of poplar wood from the state.
Fruit Growers Association of Kashmir president Sofi Mohammed Yousuf has reportedly called on the government to ban the export of the wood to keep prices under control.
