KOCHI: It was almost blasphemous to ignore the pull of the latex and go for a fruit that was till then less known to Kerala. But for Renny Jacob of Kondooparampil Thankam Estate in Kanjirappally, it was a challenge he chose to undertake. He cut down the yielding rubber trees on his four-acre ancestral property and planted rambutan, the exquisite hairy fruit of Malaysian origin in 2008.
And Renny, does not have any regrets over his decision. While today, the maximum amount one could garner from rubber is Rs 30,000 per acre, Renny is making ten to twenty times more from rambutan per acre in the past four years, i.e. approx. Rs. 4 to 6 lakhs/ year.“I waited for five years to prove that rambutan farming was not just for fun. Rambutan grows like mango and jackfruit in our climate but it provides ten times more profit commercially,” Renny says.
Renny’s rambutan orchard ‘Farm 26’, one of the first commercial rambutan orchards in India not only started to yield good results within three years of planting but also provided increased yield and income every year. In the beginning, 400 rambutan plants of three varieties, N18, E35, & V Red with a plant intensity of 100 trees per acre were planted, leaving 20 feet distance in between. It started yielding from third year onwards. The average crop was 15 kg/tree in the third year which increased to 30kg/tree in the fourth year and then to 50-70 kg/tree in the fifth and sixth year.
However, in the fifth and sixth year about 40 per cent of the trees did not give good yield due to tree congestion caused by lack of space and light for branches to flourish. On realizing that the planting intensity is to be reduced to allow trees to take its natural shape and form, Renny took a very harsh decision to cut down 280 trees keeping only 120 trees.
“The result was miraculous. The tree canopy took a totally different form once free space was provided to trees all around. The trees developed in to a spherical shape and the branches came down all around almost touching the ground. Thus it was discovered that the ideal distance between trees has to be 40 ft,” Renny says. “More than 25,000 kilos of rambutan to be harvested in the next couple of weeks from around 120 trees, with 360 degree round the crop, will be a national record this year. That is, even with a conservative price expectation of Rs120 per kilo, the total income will be more than Rs 30 lakhs.”
“Certain trees yielded even up to 300 kilos last year and this year, we expect a minimum yield of 200 kilos per tree. The life span of a rambutan tree is more than 100 years and hence I can make more profit from my rambutan farm when compared to rubber in the coming years,” Renny points out.
The harvest is once in a year, i.e. in between June and August. Another specialty of rambutan is that it can be retained on the tree for around 20 days even after it is ready for harvest. It doesn’t fall like other fruits when they are ripe. The R&D wing under Sunny George who has over 15 years of experience in this field in the US has also played a significant role in Renny’s tryst with rambutan. Renny Jacob is also one of the promoters of Home Grown Biotech, a major nursery of fruits like rambutan that has come from the Far East. Over 12 lakh plants are on sale at a time in the 70 acres of land owned by Home Grown.