The Miyawaki model is fundamentally a project aimed at simulating a natural forest. Its special advantage is that it can be made in a very small area. However, it cannot ever be a replica of a natural forest because a natural forest will have creatures, creeper and shrubs. Simulating such an environment is possible but that will require at least 20-40 cents, and can stretch to several acres of land. We can create a small forest in our compound in order to produce the vegetables and fruits we need, by following the Miyawaki technique. That will be a very creative utilization of space. I say this for a reason.
I came to Thiruvananthapuram city about 35 years back. One night, on my way back home in Kowdiar, after watching a late night movie, I saw a lot of mangoes strewn on the road. There used to be several mango trees on the roadside but nearly all of them have been chopped off in order to widen the roads. It was fun getting out of my house on a scooter at 3 in the morning with my little daughter, and picking the fallen mangoes from there. A mango tree stood on the way to Nirmala Bhavan School. There were two or three on the way to St Thomas School. The roads would become deserted by 11 pm, and remain so till 5 am when people came out for their morning walk. Thus 3 am was a convenient time to go mango-picking. This was because of a habit I had cultivated in my childhood at Kottayam. The native species of mango trees in our compounds would yield 3,000-4,000 fruits in a season, much of which would get distributed among neighbours and relatives or picked up from the adjacent roads by passers-by. Those varieties are not commonly seen now, possibly because they are difficult to grow.
Way back in 2004, when I used to take a ferry at Ambalappuzha, I used to see a native mango tree at the boat jetty. The mangoes were very sweet. So once, I picked up its seed, nurtured the sapling in a pot on my terrace, and 4-5 years later planted it in my office compound. It took another 10 years for the tree to bear fruit. In other words, the native variety takes nearly 8-16 years to produce mangoes. Very few of them remain now. Much earlier, several varieties that yielded small mangoes were a common sight. Some mangoes would be yellow, others dark green, some would be sweet, others not so, still others, sour, and so on. But they seem to have vanished now. Therefore, if we notice these varieties anywhere, we should adopt the budding technique and follow the Miyawaki model while planting them.
The first advantage of this method is that the trees will not take 15 years to fruit. The second is that it will increase the number of varieties in the Miyawaki forest in our compound. We will be able to protect the native species as well. Recently, I was told about a person who had collected 100-150 varieties of mango trees and planted them in a village in Kannur. Let us follow in that person’s footsteps, collect whatever varieties are available in our locality, even grafted and budded saplings, and nurture them. That way, we will be protecting a part of our bio-diversity. I feel an attempt in this direction will be a good thing.