After tasting success with his dragon fruit cultivation initiative, Basvanthpur farmer Ramesh Reddy again drew attention to his farm by installing hundreds of LED bulbs on the 3 hectares of dragon fruit farm at Ranzole village, Zaheerabad Mandal. The objective of the LED lighting is to get an off-season yield.
Ramesh Reddy has installed one LED bulb on each and every pole, covering four sides of the plant. While he was getting 10-12 tons of yield per acre during the season, he is now getting 1.6 tons of yield per hectare during the off-season as well.
Ramesh Reddy first tried the idea on a smaller patch a couple of years ago. He then expanded it to 1 ha last year and, in a phased manner, covered the entire farm now. Though he gets just 25 percent of yield during the off-season compared to the seasonal harvest, he said he would get double the price for his crop during the off-season, leading to an increase of about 50 percent in overall profits.
Source: telanganatoday.com