MULTAN:
Along the riverine belt stretching nearly 380 kilometres from Chiniot to Head Panjnad, where rows of mango trees once stood as a sign of the region’s agricultural wealth, the devastating floods of last year left behind a landscape of destruction and an uncertain future.
The floodwaters not only swept away large numbers of mango trees but also erased years of orchard growth, leaving growers with a challenge that cannot be overcome in a single season.
From saplings to fruit-bearing trees, orchards across the belt suffered extensive damage, creating a long-term gap in the mango-producing capacity that could take several years to bridge.
The loss is measured not only in this season’s fruit but in the future harvests that trees would have continued to provide for years.
A mango grower, Shahid Hameed Bhutta, said replacing the destroyed orchards and restoring their productive capacity would be a long-term process.
He said a large number of mango trees had been lost, leaving a huge gap in the region’s productive tree population.
New plantations require at least eight years to reach productive age, he said.
The reduced number of trees has contributed to lower mango output, affecting marketing and export.
Shahid Bhutta said the restoration of the mango belt would require extensive replanting over the coming years. However, newly planted trees would not be able to immediately replace the production lost from mature orchards.
He explained that mango trees pass through different stages of growth before reaching commercial production, while the destruction of mature orchards creates a production deficit that cannot be addressed within a season.
Another local grower, Laique Sheikhana, said the floods had caused a setback to the belt’s production capacity for years to come.
He said the growers now faced a stretch of lean seasons even as they invested in replanting, with income from their orchards reduced when they needed money to buy new plants.
He said the challenge was rebuilding the productive capacity of the orchards that had been lost.
A grower from Nawabpur, Malik Arif Kalrou, has begun replanting part of his orchard. He said many growers were competing for a limited supply of healthy saplings as the planting season had begun.
He said the growers believed that sustained plantation and orchard management would be essential to gradually bridge the production deficit created by the floods, while the impact of the disaster would remain visible in the mango sector for several years.
