Climate trends of a typical apple growing mid- hill district of Himachal Pradesh.

Abstract

For four sample decades, the study examined the long-term climate trends along with the area and production changes in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh. A database was collected for maximum temperature (Tmax ), minimum temperature (Tmin), and rainfall, and for the area and production of apple for the four representative decades of Chamba region of Himachal Pradesh. It has been observed that trends indicated that temperature in this district showed an increasing trend and precipitation (rainfall) showed decreasing trend. Temperature, rainfall was the main parameters collected along with other meteorological parameters. The minimum and maximum temperature & rainfall data were collected from the records of government departments for the period of at-least 25-30 years. Long term trends were generated to check the change detection. The minimum temperature in Chamba district has shown an increase of 0.36°C and maximum temperature increase by 0.3°C and annual rainfall decreased by 117.95 mm in 36 years. It has also been observed that many farmers are now opting for industrial crops like mushroom, flowers, off season vegetables because of climate change. Due to an increase in temperature, apple crop is getting less chilling hours, which is somehow affecting the quality of fruit. More long term research efforts are required to be conducted in Free Air Temperature Enrichment (FATE) which can enhance this study. This study also indicates that there is an increase in area and production in Chamba district but fluctuation is seen in productivity. Shifting to higher elevation might be temporary solution to meet the chilling requirement but a proper measures need to be taken. The area under apple cultivation has increased substantially from a mere 400 hectares in 1950s to 11. 4 lakhs hectares in 2020s but fluctuation is observed in the productivity of the crop. Considering the vital role that apple has in the economy of Himachal Pradesh, there is a need to study the production and productivity of the apple crop