Citrus production has increased from 1.73 mln tons in 1970 to 14 mln tons in 2019 at an average annual rate of 5.24%. Even though India ranks 3rd in terms of production after China and Brazil with 42.8 and 19.3 mln tons respectively; it stands far behind in terms of productivity (8.8 t/ha) against 22-35 t/ha when compared to other nations like Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil and USA. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are the top sweet orange producing states in India. The major challenges being increasing costs of production, decreasing life spans of trees, poor quality of fruits besides abnormal market fluctuations.
Samhitha Crop Care Clinics is a precision farming advisory firm based out at Hyderabad that is helping citrus growers of Nalgonda district in Telangana with a team of highly qualified and experienced agri-professionals.
These plant doctors are assisted by telemetries, drones, and customised Apps while monitoring the orchards remotely. The uniqueness of Samhitha is that the advisories are customized at individual tree level if not for the entire orchard. Their prime objective is increasing productivity by 30% while doubling the longevity of the orchards.
Source: indiaeducationdiary.in
