Miguel Braganza
During the monsoons, slender coconut palms swaying in the south-west winds from the Arabian Sea become the star attraction for tourists who throng to âMaddamniâ in the once-sleepy village of Parra. Dozens of Instagram reels have made these trees more famous than the so-called âinfluencersâ who tried to defame Goa last year. Tourists now call it the âDear Zindagi roadâ. So far, the palms have spared this narrow stretch from the road-widening and development that have altered much of Goa.
Today observes the 90th birthday of Dr. Heman Y. Karapurkar, the first Goan to become Director of Agriculture in 1970, and the punyathiti of Bhausaheb Dayanand B. Bandodkar, Goaâs first Chief Minister (1963â73), who appointed a Goan to this post. It is an apt moment to reflect on the health and long life of the coconut palm, the State Tree of Goa.
Traditionally, as the monsoons receded in mid-August, coconut growers dug a one-metre basin around each tree, cutting any exposed roots with the flat side of a pickaxe. Into this went green leaves from the Uski vine (Getonia floribunda), found in Goa, the North-East and parts of Southeast Asia, along with goborddem, a mix of cow dung, kitchen waste and ash. In earlier times, stale fish was also added to enrich the pit or gairee.
With forest cover dwindling, farmers began cultivating Glyricidia sepium, the Saareachem zaad or manure tree, along garden boundaries for green leaves. These also help repel rats, a common coconut pest. After adding green manure, growers mix in rock phosphate and muriate of potash, both mined minerals or traditional substitutes such as bone meal, fish meal and wood ash. Today, this is applied in a ring a foot deep and a foot wide, about a metre away from the trunk and covered lightly witha soil.
As the leaves decompose, the soil sinks into a ring-like depression that traps rainwater until the next monsoon and also aids irrigation, especially in kulaghars with a perennial water source. Rather than only lament about rising coconut prices, invest in manuring your trees to boost yields. Agriculture graduates now offer such services to those unable to do it themselves.
