Unusual: It's flowering time for mangoes

Thrissur: The climate change has triggered an unusual phenomenon in the state — a profuse flowering of mango trees.

The Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) has found that the unprecedented cool night temperature experienced in the state last month could be the most important factor for the excessive flowering.

The university has presented a report to the Agriculture Ministry and suggested a detailed study on the matter. The minimum temperature across the state last month was 16-20 Celsius as against the 20-24 last year. Relative humidity (RH) was lower as well and it stood at 40-60 degrees in January against 60-80 in 2018, the report says.

“Unusually high rains were received during the south-west monsoon in 2018, but the north-east monsoon was poor. Ground water depletion was reported from all parts of the state soon after the rains. Water stress is another factor that favour flowering of mango. There were no rains since November-December 2018,” the report adds.

Another reason for the overflowering is that during the previous year heavy rains were received during the flowering season (November-December) and (January-February) which resulted in the reversal of flowering to flushing and ended up in poor crop.

 

Flowering is governed by a proper balance between carbohydrate reserves and nitrogen in the mango shoots. Poor crop during 2018 would have increased the carbohydrate reserves, which is  also a factor that supported profuse flowering in 2019.

“We are not sure whether there would be an unprecedented mango output in Kerala as a single rain could make the flowers fall. A detailed study could be conducted into such matters which may be due to climate change,” Dr P. Indira Devi, director of research at KAU said.