From The Hindu, May 13, 1975: Scheme to improve citrus plantations

New Delhi, May 12: The Union Government has sanctioned a Rs. 84 lakhs scheme for rehabilitating the declining citrus orchards in many parts of the country and popularising high density planting. Citrus cultivation is facing a crisis because of the fall in productivity resulting from citrus die-back and the area under citrus has remained stagnant during the last 20 years. About 1,40,000 hectares are under citrus. The yield has gone down in new areas such as Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh because of citrus die-back while it has already affected the age-old industry in Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Kerala. The sweet orange plantations in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan are faced with a virus problem coupled with bad orchard management practices, resulting in a fall in yield. The new scheme will try to popularise a package of practices which would help to rehabilitate the orchards in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala where mandarin oranges are widely grown. The scheme will also try to popularise high density planting by which it is possible to plant 450 seedlings per hectare against 250 formerly. Experiments at the Chethalli and Dhaula Kuan (Himachal Pradesh) citrus research stations have shown that high density planting would increase productivity by 50 per cent. A survey by the Institute of Foreign Trade had shown that India should be able to export 5,000 tonnes of orange and an equal quantity of acid lime by 1975-76 to Europe, West Asia and South-East Asia.