Authors:

Abstract

From the time immemorial coconut bunches were harvested at two monthly
intervals. In general two such bunches are harvested at a given harvest.
However on the average a coconut bunch matures more or less every
month. If these could be harvested at monthly intervals without any adverse
effect on the nuts there will be several benefits. These are availability of
nuts over the months, savings on mature nut fall which otherwise would
have lost, steady monthly income to the pickers and thereby reducing the
risk of extension of skilled pickers. There was however no information
about the nature of impact monthly harvesting has on the production of
yield. In order to address on this issue three long term experiments were
conducted at three different agro climatic zones, to study the impact of
monthly harvesting on yield as compared to two monthly harvesting. One
experiment ran over a period of 10 years, while the other two over a period
of five years. Overall results were promising, by way of, increased nuts,
quality of copra unaffected, mature nut fall reduced to a bear minimum and
substantive gain in income to the pickers who play a vital role in the
production of coconut, for harvesting coconuts at monthly intervals.

How to Cite: Mathes, D.T. and Marikkar, J.M.N., 2010. THE IMPACT OF HARVESTING COCONUTS AT MONTHLY INTERVALS. COCOS, 16, pp.56–64. DOI: http://doi.org/10.4038/cocos.v16i0.2197