Commercial cultivation of this apple variety has been initiated in Manipur, Jammu, low lying areas of Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka Chhattisgarh, and Telangana
A farmer from Himachal Pradesh has developed an innovative self-pollinating apple variety that does not require long chilling hours for flowering and fruit setting. This has spread to plain, tropical, and subtropical areas in various parts of India, where the temperature is as high as40 -45 ºC during summer.
Commercial cultivation of this apple variety has been initiated in Manipur, Jammu, low lying areas of Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka Chhattisgarh, and Telangana, and fruit setting has been expanded to 23 states & UTs so far.
Hariman Sharma, a progressive farmer, hailing from Paniala village of Bilaspur district, Himachal Pradesh, who developed this innovative apple variety – HRMN 99 has become a source of inspiration not only for thousands of farmers in the region but also for horticulturists of Bilaspur and other lower hill districts in the State –areas which earlier could never dream of growing apples.
From 2007 to 2012, Hariman went around convincing others that growing apple in low chilling conditions is no longer impossible. However, not much interest was evinced in the research and dissemination of the variety. Eventually, the innovative variety was scouted by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) – India, an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. NIF verified the claims of the innovator and evaluated the distinctiveness and potentiality of the variety by facilitating molecular & diversity analysis studies and fruit quality testing.
NIF also provided financial and technical support for establishing and expanding the nursery, besides aiding the registration of the variety under the Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers Right Act, 2001. During 2014-2019, the Multi-location trials of the variety in low chilling areas across the country were conducted by NIF by transplanting over 20,000 saplings at over 2,000 farmers’ fields and 25 organizations in 30 states, including Rashtrapati Bhawan. Fruit setting has been reported from 23 states, and UT’s so far. These are Bihar, Jharkhand, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Dadra, and Nagar Haveli, Karnataka, Haryana, Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Pondicherry, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi.
