Silver oak helps Nilgiris tea growers tide over loss

To tide over the loss from tea plantations, a movement to encourage small farmers to take up the cultivation of silver oak trees is catching on in the Nilgiris.

The Forest Department has invited growers to collect silver oak saplings free-of-cost from its nurseries at the rate of 500 saplings an acre.

It is also distributing a subsidy of Rs 5 a plant to defray farmers' maintenance expenditure.

In low elevation interior villages, farmers have abandoned fields, unable to grow tea. Silver oak is being promoted as suitable crop in such wastelands.

An experiment of planting silver oak with suitable inter-crops to give immediate revenue has added a new dimension to wasteland cultivation.

In Kookal Thorai village, 10 km from Kotagiri, farmers have abandoned cultivation following their inability to bear losses from coffee, orange, vegetable and tea due to pests and diseases as also weather disadvantages. A demonstrable changes in cultivation pattern has been brought about by 36-year old S. Manoj Kumar.

“When I inherited this 12-acre land in Arangy campus, it was an abandoned bushy field. I studied the inter-cropping permutations compatible to fundamentals such as soil, weather, elevation, terrain, irrigation, micronutrients and wild animal disturbances. Now, my experiment is regarded as fit for emulation,” Mr S Manoj Kumar, hailed for his ‘Arangy Demonstration', told Business Line .

“With Forest Department's support, I have planted 3,200 silver oak saplings and will plant 2,000 more. At current reckoning, silver oak trees fetch Rs 2,000 a tree after 12 years of planting. I will plant Vembu trees also soon,” he said.

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