Flowering pattern goes haywire

Wrong Time

The change in the weather pattern in the City has led to a rather strange phenomenon — while some flowers have begun to bloom earlier than they normally do, other crops haven’t flowered at all.

Experts point out that this can be attributed to the erratic weather not just in Bangalore, but across the state.

“Over the years, these crops have been used to a particular type of weather. However, because of the erratic weather pattern, many of them are getting affected. For instance, due to the unpredictable rains, the brinjal crops haven’t been flowering at all. The opposite goes for mangoes — in some cases, they have been flowering early,” explains Suresh Heblikar, an environmentalist.

As he explains, these changes could have disastrous consequences, since some of these crops bring in a lot of money for the country.

“Mango crops, in particular, are very important as a huge quantity is exported to other countries. Timely rainfall indicates good crops and high quality of fruits. Generally, the mango flowers come up in the month of March, April and May — but this year, they are blooming early,” he adds.

N Ravikumar, who is well-versed in the fields of horticulture and agriculture, highlights another aspect of the phenomenon. He says that the weather change has given many farmers sleepless nights. “A while back, there was heavy rainfall and the maize and rice crops were affected. Both maize and rice require heat and a lot of sunlight. But because of the rain, almost all the crops were damaged. Crops such a tomato and onion, which follow a particular weather pattern, have seeded early as compared to last year. The change in the crop pattern might be slow, but it could be dangerous in the future,” he explains.

Many others point out that some flowers — such as jacaranda and ‘Flame of the Forest’ — have also bloomed early. Jacaranda, for instance, generally blooms in April — but some of the flowers began blooming as early as January.

“Jacaranda is one such flower, which has bloomed early this year. ‘Flame of the Forest’, which can commonly be seen towards the end of March, began blooming in December — which is quite strange,” notes Kakoli Mukhopadhyay, a former agricultural scientist.
Devidas, a vegetable vendor, says that unripe mangoes will soon be flooding the market. “The season for raw mangoes generally begins in mid-April and goes on till mid-May. But the flowers have already bloomed and we will soon start getting the raw fruit for sale,” he sums up.