Jignesh Patel, a mango orchard owner from Surat in Gujarat, tends to 400 mango trees. This past February, he tried using wood vinegar for the first time. He procured a litre of it and diluted it with 300 litres of water to spray on his mango trees. The results were impressive.

Previously, Jignesh had experimented with various local pesticides, but they proved ineffective for his organic farming practices. “Last year, despite getting good flowering on my trees, hardly any of them could produce any fruit. Pest damaged almost 90 percent of my crop,” he recalls.

To combat this, Jignesh found that he needed to spray wood vinegar at least six times in a season. “For Rs 150 per litre, the wood vinegar proved a worthy investment. This season, I anticipate a yield of 1,500 kilograms of Kesar mangoes, and I am hopeful for substantial profits,” he smiles.

The success he observed with wood vinegar was so encouraging that he has now ordered 50 bags of biochar fertilisers as well. “To further enhance mango production, I am also turning to biochar fertilisers,” he adds.

Jignesh was surprised and fascinated when he learnt that these products were made from pine needle waste.

Data suggests that Uttarakhand’s forest fires have burned over 54,801 hectares of land since 2000. Historically, the accumulation of pine needles on the forest floor has been a major reason for spreading fires in the state. Over 71 percent of the state’s land is forested and pine trees – locally known as Chir ka ped – cover about 16 percent of the forest area in the state.

To address this problem, Dr Megha........

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