Apples are usually a crop of cool hill regions, but a father and son in Uttar Pradesh's Bahraich have pulled off something no one thought possible: growing them in scorching heat. With trees heavy with red and green apples in temperatures of 40 to 45 degrees, their orchard is now being talked about not just across Bahraich district but throughout Uttar Pradesh.
The men behind this feat are Taj Mohammad and his son Rizwan Ahmad. They live in Harchanda village along Jarwal Road, about 55 kilometres from the Bahraich district headquarters. Around four years ago, they decided to grow apples on their two bigha plot and brought in 200 apple saplings specially from a nursery in Himachal Pradesh to plant on their land.
When People Called Them Mad
The journey was anything but easy. When the saplings first went into the ground, villagers called them mad. People laughed and taunted them, insisting that growing apples in Bahraich's blistering summer was simply impossible. The pair, however, ignored the jibes and quietly stayed focused on the work.
For four years they toiled day and night. Even in the desert-like heat, they watered the plants with patience and sweat and kept them lush and green. Setting up the entire orchard cost them around 18 lakh rupees. Today that effort has paid off, and the very people who once mocked them have fallen silent at the sight of red and green apples dangling from the trees.
The Yield and the Earnings
Taj Mohammad says the two bigha orchard is expected to deliver a bumper harvest of roughly 10 to 12 quintals of apples this season. He also broke down the maths of the income. Good quality apples fetch up to about 250 rupees per kilogram in the market, but even if his apples sell wholesale at just 150 rupees per kilogram, the family can comfortably earn 10 to 12 lakh rupees a year.
With this success, the family's fortunes are set to change completely. So much so that people are now travelling from far and wide just to see this unusual apple orchard.
