Standardization of agrotechniques for raising of seabuckthorn plantations in Lahaul, a high altitude cold desert region of Himachal Pradesh

In view of high ecological and economic potential and increasing demand of seabuckthorn in industries, it was of utmost importance to standardize the basic agro-techniques of this multipurpose plant in cold desert Himalayas. Therefore, efforts were made to design the agrotechnique (viz., plant spacing, size of pits, nutritional requirement and weed control) practices to cultivate seabuckthorn in those areas, where apple cultivation cannot be taken up. Further, it was also decided to make an effort to convert low fruit bearing wild stands into heavy fruit bearing stands through their pruning. The observations found that the plant spacing of 4 m × 2 m resulted in highest canopy volume generation in seabuckthorn plantation followed by 3.5 m × 2.0 m and 4.0 m × 1.5 spacing in the experimental plantations. when plant to plant spacing was decreased to lesser than 1.5 m, overlapping was observed in plant canopies. An increase in the pit size from 1 ft x 1ft x 1ft to 2ft x 2ft x 2ft cm resulted in a significant (P<0.05) increase in higher plant volume generation. The experimentation on the weed control over the years was conducted. It has very clearly emanated from the findings that using black polythene sheet or Artemisia weed as mulch in the basins of seabuckthorn plants decreased the weed dry matter significantly (P<0.05) and was found as good as 3 times manual weeding by hand required to check the weeds. The weed control by mulching method may prove quite useful, as this remote region of Himachal Pradesh suffers from scarcity of local labour and mostly migratory lobour is available, which is quite expensive. The experimentation on the nutrition of new plantations was modified to find out the suitable dose of FYM for growing seabuckthorn trees. It was found that about 30 kg FyM/basin in a 5 years old plant is required. Results on the application of vermicompost were also promising but it was decided that farmer may not spare it for cultivation of seabuckthorn, as exotic vegetables are being cultivated in the region. The studies on the pruning intensity revealed that pruning intensity beyond 25% did not increase the fruit yield rather there was a decrease in the yield, when the punning severity was increased to 33% or 50%. It was observed that the light pruning intensity of 25% is sufficient to increase fruit production in wild seabuckthorn trees. Further, the productivity of seabuckthorn forest can be improved through conversion into productive stands.