Trees in the farm

Trees are the lungs of our farm and provide an abundance of oxygen. Though we enjoyed 20 youth years in Bangalore, it also affected our health badly with the ever increasing pollution. We are now just flushing out all the mess we accumulated in the presence of these trees in the farm. When we bought the land, it was already having many trees mostly Jackfruit , Mango and Coconut. We added some more to these and in addition planted more than 100 trees in last 5 years. We bought these trees from Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI), Kerala Agricultural University and nearby private nurseries in Thrissur.

Jackfruits mostly we have all native varieties. We have now added J33 and Vietnam Early for our selfishness, though we don't advocate such early fruiting trees or foreign varieties. Mango trees are mostly the 'moovandan' local variety. We have added now Alphonso, Priyoor, Kesar, Banana Mango, Chausa, Kalappadi, Amrapali, Badami, Banganapalli, Mallika and Dasheri. Though now land is less, our selfish mind tells us to add some more.

Coconut trees are the bread earner of our farm currently. We have currently 60 trees. When we were in Bangalore, all of them were left on their own for food and water. We hardly got any coconuts that time. Whatever fell down was taken away by our fellow countrymen as and when they wished as there was no fencing and no caretaker. Once we relocated to native, we started providing them with Jeevamrutham and we also started watering them regularly except during rainy season. Now we can count almost 1000 coconuts once in 2 months from these 60 trees . Each coconut weighs around 700 grams except during the rainy season. Though we occasionally provide them with cow dung, neem cake and ground nut cake, we plan to provide them only with Jeevamrutham going forward as we find it alone should suffice tree's nutrient requirements.

Other trees in the farm are Lakshmi Tharu, Jamun or njaval (native and Gulab), Breadfruit or Kadaplavu, Pongam, Chaulmugra or Marotti, Poison nut tree or Kanjiram, Custard Apple, Soursop or Mullatha, Cherimoya or Ramphal, Chikoo or Sapota, Gauva (Native and Japan) .....

We don't apply any manure to these trees except for the ones we planted and for coconuts. Rest all take their inputs from all over the farm with their underground roots. Only we try to provide good mulching so that the microbes helps us in taking the required nutrients to the entire root system.

One aspect we are trying to add to our farm in 2026 is to identify and add more trees which are liked by many birds either to nest or interested in its fruits. We are also trying to add some flowering plants which can attract bees and butterflies. It is an experience of other farmers that adding Bees to the farm improve the productivity of the coconut trees by 15-20%. So planning to plant beehive boxes in farm in 2026.

We were very reluctant to put axe on the trees till now, so pruning was very rarely tried aspect in our farm. However from the advice received from our mentor Mr. K V Dayal and other farming communities, we plan to prune the branches of all trees so that we get as much mulch for our farm also more sunlight to try intercrops in between the trees.