JOIN USA rare passion to raise carnivorous plants
There is a total mismatch with his educational qualification and passion. But he has succeeded in doing justice to his passion.
Meet P K Mohanty, a technocrat residing in Bhubaneswar. His passion is certainly unique and rare. An industrial electronics engineer by training, the 45-year-old loves to raise carnivorous plants.
“To raise flesh-eating plants has remained a passion with me right from my childhood and would remain so till my death. These plants are nature’s wonder and marvels of mother earth,” he maintains.
He had a fair knowledge about carnivorous plants from his school days thanks to his grandfather, the late Hrudananda Mohanty who was a doctor and an ardent lover of flesh-eating plants. He had some of them in his house.
Mohanty, however, got an opportunity to practise his passion seriously when he returned to Bhubaneswar quitting a well-paid job in a multi-national company outside Odisha to look after his aging parents after the sudden demise of his younger brother.
Once in his home state, he started raising the flesh-eating plants in the small nursery inside his residence which now houses one of the largest collections of these plants in the country. His efforts in the last two decades had turned him into the proud owner of nearly 1,000 saplings and fully grown plants of about 40 varieties.
“At present there are only hundred-odd people in the entire country who raise and own flesh-eating plants. And I am one among them,” Mohanty, who has now turned to farming for a living said. He has a farm house on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar.
Some of his prized collections include Dionaea Muscipula which is also popularly known as “fly traps” for its expertise in trapping insects and flies. According to Mohanty, different carnivorous plants have different methods and techniques to catch their prey.
“For instance, the Dionaea Muscipula opens its leaves and releases water from its body. It lures its victims to taste the water. When the prey lands on the water, the plant immediately closes its leaves trapping its victim inside,” he said. Also, the flesh-eating plants go for a kill only to get nitrogen from the victim for their own growth.
It is nevertheless not an easy job to raise and maintain the carnivorous plants for various reasons. They cannot be planted or raised in ordinary soil. One needs to have specially prepared soil to grow them. Also, these plants cannot absorb treated normal water.
They need chemical-and-mineral-free water to sustain themselves. Therefore, one has to collect rain water and the water from air-conditioners for them. “I have arranged big containers to collect rain and AC water for my plants. I store them for the entire year,” Mohanty said. These plants are very sensitive and need a lot of care, he added.
Stealing and theft is another problem the carnivorous plant raisers have to handle. “Several times people have stolen some of my rare and valuable plants.
However, the most unfortunate part is that the stolen plants usually meet their end quickly as thieves lack expertise or experience to maintain them,” Mohanty said. One has to read a lot of books and magazines to acquire knowledge to keep these rare treasures alive for long.
As these plants are not available easily, he has gone for germination of some plants and is hopeful of having a stock of about 1,000 saplings within a year. Most of the flesh-eating plants grow in tropical countries like Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Malaysia.
“Ninety per cent of the carnivorous plants in the world are available in these countries,” he said. In India, some of the northeastern states like Meghalaya are home to these unique plants.
On his future plans, Mohanty said his ultimate aim is to donate his prized possessions to schools and colleges in Odisha. “Students only read about the carnivorous plants in their textbooks and storybooks.
They rarely get an opportunity to see them. My aim is to create interests among students to know more about these wonders of the nature,” he said.
He is having a dream to create a big garden full of carnivorous plants of different sizes and varieties in Bhubaneswar. These type of gardens are popularly known as “bug gardens”.
“There are bug gardens abroad which are very popular. India is yet to have such a garden to my knowledge. I want to have one in Bhubaneswar before I say goodbye to mother earth,” Mohanty said insisting that he always had a desire to do unique things in life right from his childhood.
Significantly, he dismissed claims often made in storybooks that there are flesh-eating plants which can consume people. “They are nothing but only myths and imaginations,” he said.
According to him, a bigger size Nepenthes, a carnivorous plant which is popularly known as “Raja” and found in some tropical countries have the capability to eat snakes, frogs and birds. But they certainly cannot make human beings their diet.