The directorate of cinchona and other medicinal plants, which functions under the state horticulture department, has taken up the initiative to introduce the grafting method in orange cultivation to enhance the production of the popular fruit in the hills.

“We have identified Mansong and Latpanchar as the sites where the grafting method will be introduced on one lakh orange plants. So far, around 40,000 plants have been cultivated through this new method. The idea is to ensure that oranges are harvested from these plants at the earliest,” said Samuel Rai, the director of the cinchona plantation.

According to him, the new method will encourage orange cultivation among farmers.

Oranges are no longer considered a cash crop in the Darjeeling hills. Most of the plants have become old and the yield is very low, making orange cultivation not as economically viable as it once was.

“The existing plants in the hills are more than 50 years old and cannot grow much fruit. That is why the initiative has been taken. Instead of uprooting the entire plant, the new grafting method will help to get a good yield of oranges,” added Rai.

Sources said that earlier this year, a team from the directorate, along with some orange growers, visited Nagpur to learn about the cultivation process.

Later, experts from Nagpur came here and trained the

staff of the directorate on grafting techniques. The staff, in turn, have trained growers in these two locations.

Experts said that grafting is a technique that joins parts of a plant and makes it grow as a single plant.

“In this case, the plant grows from parts of plants and not from a seed. Usually, an orange plant that grows from a seed takes around seven years to yield fruits. However, once the grafting method is introduced on a large scale, results should be seen within two years,” said an expert.

Earlier, orange was cultivated in around 1,500 hectares of area in the hills.

But these days, there are plantations in barely 200 hectares. The reasons that led to the decline include the prevalence of fungal diseases like citrus powdery mildew and attack of pests such as trunk borer and citrus tristeza.

Debojit Basak, the assistant director of the district horticulture department in Darjeeling district, said along with the grafting method, they have distributed around 11,000 new saplings to growers in five hill blocks — Darjeeling-Pulbazar, Jore Bunglow-Sukhiapokhri, Kurseong, Mirik and Rangli Rangliot — to encourage cultivation of the fruit.

“Though we have not received adverse reports from the growers so far (on grafting), the trend of production can be predicted only from the first week of December when the new fruits get colour and shape,” he said.