MYSURU: This couple landed at Bengaluru airport after a tiring journey when they happened to see a woman from the US holding a beautiful flower. Unable to stop themselves, they approached her and found that a swamiji of Ramanashri Ashram gave it to her. They did not waste time and went straight to the ashram and got the plant.
Such is their passion that Dr C N Mruthyunjayappa and his wife Sudha have raised more than 100 varieties of fruits, most of them exotic and exclusively grown in specific regions across the globe, in the front and backyards of their house built on a 120x90 ft plot.
Both, students of botany, they have mastered the art of grafting and are successful in growing different species of fruits on a single plant.
Their lemon tree bears more than a dozen varieties of citrus fruits that have their origins from Kodagu to China and from Darjeeling to Switzerland. The plum, peach, apricot and apple- - all are grown on one tree.
Their garden boasts of 10 varieties of jackfruit, some of them gumless, 10 varieties of mango, over a dozen varieties of guava, some weighing over a kilo and a half, mulberry, dragon fruit, fig, almond, butter fruit, plum, pistachio, apricot, rose apple, and the list goes on and on.
The couple, for whom grafting is a passion, keep searching on websites for new fruit plant species and are ready to fly to any corner of the globe just to get a scion (a detached living portion of a plant) to graft it on a tree in their garden.
So far, they have travelled to more than 100 countries in the last five decades. Age is no barrier to pursue their passion and they are planning to visit Sri Lanka and Thailand in August to collect some scions from the beautiful islands there.
The wonder garden attracts more than a dozen species of birds every day and it is a delightful moment for the couple to see them nibble on their exotic fruits. “Our garden fruits are first for birds. Then it’s for friends and relatives. If there is anything left, then it’s for us,” they say.
No visitor to their house goes empty-handed as the couple not only serves them the fresh and organically grown fruits but also gifts them a basketful.
The roots for Mruthyunjayappa’s passion were laid in his childhood in Chikkabagilu village in Malavalli taluk, when his mother Parvathamma, an illiterate,who loved to grow trees, grew many of them in their backyard. It was she who inspired him to fall in love with plants. He later chose botany in B.Sc. Luckily, his life-partner also turned out to be a botany student, and together they started the journey of grafting.
When Mruthyunjayappa joined M.Sc (Botany) in Karnatak University, Dharwad, news came that he got a medical seat in Mysore Medical College. Unable to resist the temptation, he grabbed the opportunity to become a doctor .
But he ensured that his understanding of botany was put to good use. Moreover, he wanted to see if plants from different climatic regions would grow and bear fruits in Mysuru. That’s how he became a collector of plants.
The couple’s passion for grafting started in Saraguru and the experimental lab got shifted to Mysuru after they built a house here about a decade and a half ago. Unlike others, the couple’s planning of the new house construction focussed more on their garden than the house.
Mruthyunjayappa has been chosen for this year’s Plant Genome Savior Community Award given by The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority, Government of India. The award will be presented at a function to be held at Champaran, Bihar on April 19.