Floriculturists stagger to hybrid transformation on sinking yields

HYDERABAD: Elderly floriculturists in Sindh can vividly recall blissful days they have spent while producing a variety of flowers for local markets and used to enjoy earning throughout a year.

At that time, they said they had local seeds for developing nurseries. They never imagined and they would spend so much on chemical inputs, operating tube wells on diesel and a widely use of machinery.

Floriculture hybridisation, a method of crossing two genetically different individuals for plant breeding, is a new phenomenon for them. It has created problems, forcing gardeners to spend more money on purchasing seeds seasonally in the name of receiving high yields.

Expenses on cultivation and maintenance are higher than the prices they receive in markets, gardeners said. A few years ago, producers incurred Rs5,000 per acre for cultivation on local seedling. Now, they have to pay more than Rs100,000 per acre after an emergence of high yielding varieties.

A packet of hybrid seed of famous marigold variety is available at Rs14,000 with different tags of multinational companies and dealers, comprising 10,000 seedlings. One acre land requires at least 5 to 8 packets. Similarly, they have to buy seeds of different flower varieties, which now have crossbreeds.

Besides cost of seeds, producers have to invest on tractor machinery for land leveling, chemical inputs, weed and getting water through tube wells, which cost them Rs30,000 to 40,000 per acre of cultivation.

Floriculturists are yet to understand commercial value of hybridisation.  Popular gulab does not have hybrid seedling available in the market, otherwise all the popular flowers have their seeds with labels.

Farmers call the hybridisation an abrupt burden on cultivators, which they are unable to face. They are forced to buy hybrid seeds because there is no option left for them to continue traditional methods.

Flowers have more value in maintaining centuries old religious rituals and are used in herbal medicines in both rural and urban centers. Gulab and marigold have a similar importance due to its attraction for religious rituals, fragrance, beauty and use in herbal medicines.   

Rose varieties, which have hybrid seeds, include lily, tulip, gul-e-sultan, and 'green grass' used in arrangement of bouquet.

Gulab is the major product used in bouquets, garlands and ornaments. Sindh is a major producer with cultivating flowers on around 10,000 acres of land, mainly in Hyderabad district, which has normal and favourable weather for the rose products.  

Drooping soil fertility is another issue facing the gardeners, who believe that due to excess use of chemicals, tube-well water instead of river water, increasing salinity, frequency of heat waves and weather change they are unable to get expected yields of flowers.

“We are planning to have soil testing from laboratory to see the status of fields and follow the guidance how to restore the land fertility,” said Majeed Mallah, who is a graduate from Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam.

Mallah, who has been involved in flower business for the last 15 years, is leading the third generation of his family in this specific business. 

“We accommodate a large number of male and female workforce on daily wages for picking, packing, loading and unloading,” he said. “We used to have fresh river water flowing by watercourses with silts to maintain the soil. But, now they have only option to operate tube wells for getting water for crops.

Besides this, they had common practice to use traditional farm manure for maintaining the fertility of lands, which is no more in practice for many years.

“It was the prosperous era, when the people in the entire agriculture sector had experienced farm manure some 20 years back,” Mallah said. “But now the situation has been changed and specifically floriculture producers are facing problems to sustain their ancestral occupation in the face of changing climate and emerging hybridization.”

September is the start of the main season of cultivating flowers. Farmers are preparing lands for seasonal flowers.

Flowers need moderate weather for growth. But since farmers are experiencing extreme heat wave for most of the year these sensitive roses cannot sustain the change. There has been an alarming drop in yield of gulab. They receive only 3--4 kg per acre.

Mallah expects to have favourable product of 10 to 12 kg from September when the weather will be changed. Otherwise, he said before 2008 they used to receive more than 40-kg per acre.

Flower farmers urged the government to help them establish greenhouses to save the major commercial products. This could be only one way out to maintain the weather for sensitive roses. There is no required water and suitable soil to support the plants to resist heat and dryness.