Evaluation of Potentials and Constraints for Wood Apple (Limonia acidissima L.) Cultivation in Sri Lanka Using Spatio-Temporal Data

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1 Proceedings of 10 th Agricultural Research Symposium (2010) Evaluation of Potentials and Constraints for Wood Apple (Limonia acidissima L.) Cultivation in Sri Lanka Using Spatio-Temporal Data S.M.P.M. VIPULASENA 1, N.R. ABEYNAYAKE 1 and H.K. KADUPITIYA 2 1 Department of Agribusiness Management, Faculty of Agriculture and Plantation Management, Wayamba University of Sri Lanka, Makandura, Gonawila (NWP). 2 Horticultural Crop Research and Development Institute (HORDI), Gannoruwa. ABSTRACT Wood apple (Limonia acidissima L.) is an underutilized fruit in Sri Lanka. Although wood apple has reached export level in Sri Lanka, there s no any commercial cultivation. The objective of this study is to identify and map potential areas for wood apple cultivation in Sri Lanka using spatio-temporal data and evaluation the present status of wood apple cultivation in high potential areas. Geographic Information System (GIS) has been a proven application for integrating spatio-temporal data for extracting information for effective management. In this study probability potential area map for wood apple growth has been generated using principal component analysis for island wide climatic data in FloraMap GIS software with existing tree locations recorded by Global Positioning System (GPS). A survey was carried out in high potential areas for evaluating present status to identify bottle necks for commercial wood apple production. Results of spatial analysis showed western part of North, dry zone of North Western and Southern provinces have high potential for growing wood apple while some parts of Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura and Ampara showed moderate potentials. Although Sri Lanka has wider extents suitable for wood apple, many constraints avert improving cultivation to the existing potentials. According to the results of study, most of the constraints were arisen due to some tree characters, lack of quality planting materials and superior varieties. The low income for the present production was also identified as a reason that averts growers from cultivating wood apple as a major fruit. KEYWORDS: Climatic potential, Constraints, FloraMap, GIS, Wood apple. INTRODUCTION Fruits are rich sources of essential vitamins and important for food and nutritional security and income generation. Diversity of fruit crops is high in Sri Lanka due to its wide range of ecosystem diversity and climatic conditions. Although the country is rich with many fruit species the per capita consumption of fruits in the country is far below the required level of recommendation. Sri Lanka imports a significant volume of fruits annually, on which the country spends a colossal amount of foreign exchange. Even though, the country cannot produce exotic fruits in large amounts, it can step up production of other fruits with very concerted and wellorganized effort. Presently, very few fruit species are commercially cultivated in Sri Lanka and many are being cultivated and managed by rural communities. These fruits are generally known as underutilized fruits with under-exploited potentials for contributing to food and nutritional security, income generation and environmental services. Potentials of these fruits for commercial cultivation have rarely been evaluated. Wood apple (Limonia acidissima L.) is an important fruit crop which has reached export level in Sri Lanka. It is a native species of India and Sri Lanka (Morton, 1987) and still considered as an underutilized fruit in Sri Lanka. It has ability to adapt wider range of agroecological conditions and can be grown in many locations with low investment. Wood apple is widely used as fresh fruit as well as variety of value added products due to its unique inherent taste. The pulp has high amounts of Pectin, Calcium and Phosphorus and compared to other fruits it has the second highest amount of Fiber (4 %) (Wickremasinghe, 2007). Further it has been reported as a medicinal tree. Wood apple is processed to make chutney, jelly, nectar, cream, cordial, jam etc. It is economically important in Sri Lankan fruit processing industry as there is a constant demand. Of all underutilized fruits used in manufacturing industry, wood apple claims 54 % of products volume lower only to passion fruit (56 %) (Gunasena et al., 2003). There is a potential demand for wood apple in local and international markets and high potential to improve and popularize in agro business. Compared with many underutilized fruits, wood apple has the highest potential for commercialization due to its export potentials. Although it has reached export status there is no any organized cultivation of wood apple in Sri Lanka (Wickramasinghe, 2007) and potentials and constraints of wood apple for commercial cultivation have not been well studied. Geographic Information System (GIS) is a proven tool for integrating spatial data to explore

2 Vipulasena, Abeynayake and Kadupitiya information for effective decision making. GIS can merge genetic diversity information with other geo-referenced data such as population density, climate, topography and soils, adding value to genetic resources. FloraMap, the product of more than 20 years of research at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) is a GIS software designed to develop conservation strategies, map the potential distribution of species in nature, monitor genetic diversity, select potential collecting sites, design in situ reserves and enhance genetic resources use. Modeling methods attempt to predict the probability of occurrence or environmental suitability for the species as a function of a set of selected environmental variables. Geographical areas that, in theory, meet the environmental conditions required by the species represent its potential distribution, while the areas actually inhabited by the species represent its realized distribution (Phillips et al., 2006). Development of climatic potential area maps of wood apple cultivation allows us evaluating improvement potentials in high potential areas. The specific objective of this study is to evaluate the cultivating potentials of wood apple in Sri Lanka by mapping the most probable or potential areas for wood apple using spatialtemporal data and identify constraints for promoting wood apple cultivation in these areas. Probability Prediction mode METHODOLOGY Tree locations Extracted Climate data Geospatial Modelling Probability of Tree growth Figure1. Methodology flowchart Climate Grid Evaluation of Socioeconomic potential Data Collection Actual inhabitant of wood apple were incorporate for FloraMap systems as location coordinates recorded using handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) (model: Garmin etrex vista) under Kandawala Geographical Coordinates system in decimal degrees (WGS84). 200 tree location coordinates covering different areas of the country were collected from Data Bank of Horticultural Crop Research and Development Institute (HORDI) and used for geo-spatial analysis after random field checking for verification. Data for evaluation of potentials and constraints for wood apple cultivation were gathered through a field survey with pre-tested questionnaire in selected villages in a high potential area in Kurunegala district with the guidance of probability map developed using geo spatial analysis. Due to limited information on contacts of wood apple growers, Snowball sampling method (a non probabilistic sampling method) was used during the field survey. Wood apple growers (Tree owners), intermediaries, agriculture field officers, nursery managers and local researches were interviewed. Growers and intermediaries were asked to rank the constraints which avert growers from cultivating wood apple as a major fruit. Probability Mapping Probability maps were generated with FloraMap (Jones and Gladkov, 1999) software based on the inbuilt climate database of South East Asia. FloraMap use the Principle Component Regression Approach (PCA) integrating multidimensional spatio-temporal data of known tree location coordinates for predicting potential distribution of considered tree type. Thirty-six climatic variables were used: monthly average data of temperature, rainfall, and diurnal temperature. Temperature is standardized with elevation using NOAA 1984 TGP-006 digital elevation model and a lapse rate model (Jones 1991). Rainfall and diurnal temperature range remain independent of elevation. Tree distribution map point shape file was generated using the spreadsheet containing GPS accession coordinates as input file for FloaMap software. Probability prediction model for potential tree growing areas was developed using the PCA with 36 (12 month * 3 variables) climate variables belonged to 200 tree locations in FloraMap software. The rainfall data were often modeled gamma distribution (Jones and Thorntoton, 1993) and during the model development rainfall data were transformed to get approximately normal distribution to fulfill the assumptions. Adjustments for variables and

3 Potentials and Constraints for Wood Apple Cultivation in Sri Lanka number of Principal Components were set during model development. The PCA model had been applied for whole island climate database for development of potential distribution map of wood apple. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Potential Growing Areas for Wood Apple Rainfall data relevant to locations of wood apple trees were found not following normal distribution. Among the data transformation method attempted, square root transformation has been found best for most of the months and that method has been chosen to transform rainfall data in to normal distributed data set during spatial data processing. Multivariate-normal distribution was fitted to the Principal Component scores and the multidimensional probability of distribution was calculated for all pixels using the probability model. The probability surface was generated as a shape file and the map of potential areas for wood apple was resulted (Figure 2). Western part of North, dry zone of North Western and Southern provinces showed the highest potential with the probability over 90 % for growing wood apple, while some parts of Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura, and Monaragala and Ampara districts showed moderate potentials for wood apple (Figure 2). Figure 2. Potential area map of wood apple When considering the socio economic statuses in these areas, most of the population belongs to the rural farming community and have low nutrition status, relatively high unemployment and distinct low poverty rates. The head count index measuring the poverty reported the highest value of 37 % in Monaragala district, 32 % for Hambantota and 31 % for Puttalam (Department of Census and Statistics, 2002). Results suggests wood apple is a high potential crop which can be incorporate to poverty elevation and nutritional security programs targeting enhanced livelihood of communities in those areas. Encouraging smaller and medium sized wood apple based fruit processing enterprises in these areas will probably improve income generation and market opportunities resulting employment opportunities for the community. Promoting wood apple as a commercial cultivation would lead to increase the performance of the rural, small-scale agricultural sector and eradicating the poverty among them. Due to its drought tolerance characters wood apple can be utilized to improve productivity of marginal rain fed lands in these areas with low investment. The highest distribution sites of wood apple can be already seen in the mapped areas. Most wild trees in the dry zone are threatened due to land fragmentation and Chena cultivation. So it is important to consider the threat of genetic erosion of this species. In situ conservation and germplasm collection programs of should be undertaken targeting the highest potential areas to conserve the available genetic diversity. Constraints for Wood Apple Cultivation Table 1. Descriptive statistics of tree owners Description % reported Land holding size <0.5Ac Ac 47 >1Ac 16 Occupation Farmer 63 Government & private sector 20 other 17 Propagation of trees By grower 0 Naturally 100 Management Practices Fertilizer application 0 Irrigation 0 other 0 Like to expand the cultivation 7 No need to expand the cultivation 60 Willing to cut down their trees 33 Harvesting season Aug-Sept Fruits per tree /season Avg. price/kg Avg.income per tree/season Rs.15 Rs.1500

4 Vipulasena, Abeynayake and Kadupitiya No wood apple growers or commercial plantation had been identified during the survey. All the interviewers had at least a wood apple tree in their home garden and the trees were seed propagated under natural conditions. None of the growers practiced any management practices for their trees and it was a neglected crop. Majority of the interviewers owned a land extent less than one acre (Table 1) and were unwilling to let the wood apple tree to grow in their land as the roots could cause cracking on walls. They had the perception that wood apple compete and absorb the water available for other crops due to its drought tolerance characters. There were no organized extension services on wood apple cultivation and awareness about processing techniques was limited among growers. Although land availability was not a problem, some of the tree owners wanted to cut down their wood apple trees due to the low economic returns. About 1/3 of them were willing to cut down the wood apple tress considering the value of timber (Table 1). This can be lead to genetic erosion and even eradicate wood apple from the area. The fruit was mostly known because of its nutritional value and timber value rather than medicinal value. According to growers ranking, low economic returns, intercropping problems and seasonality were the major constraints for expansion of cultivation. Majority indicated the low price for the fresh fruits as the main marketing constraint (Table 2). Average selling price of wood apple by the growers was Rs.15 with maximum price of Rs. 20 per 1 kg. Some of the tree owners mentioned that the prices were determined by the collectors and sometimes get much lower prices than the average. Growers considered the wood apple as an uneconomic fruit comparing to other fruits like papaya, mango and banana due to this low economic return. The main income source of the most of the growers of the surveyed area was agriculture (Table 1) and coconut was the major crop in home gardens. Table 2. Growers constraint ranking Rank Constraint Percentage 1 Price low 70 Unable to intercrop 24 Production low & 6 seasonality 2 Unable to intercrop 47 price low 30 other 23 3 Less land availability 40 Low production & 33 seasonality other 27 The growers had the perception that wood apple couldn t be intercropped with other profitable crops like coconut and considered it as a major constraint to expand the cultivation (Table 2). According to them, larger canopy of wood apple tree was one constraint for expanding wood apple cultivation with limited land. Seasonality, longer time to bearing (more than 10 years), low quality fruit characters, inadequacy of quality planting materials were among other constraints. The growers were not aware about recommended superior varieties of wood apple. Based on the seediness on the pulp they had recognized two types Eta Divul which contains large amount of seeds in the pulp and Bath Divul that contained less seeds. There s no direct marketing to end consumers or fruit processors. Growers pick the naturally fallen ripen fruits and collect daily in to gunny bags and sell when there s a sufficient amount to sell. As this is not a satisfactory practice for trading some collectors pick unripe fruits, keep those in the mud and sell them. But the quality of fruit is low. Intermediaries played a vital role in marketing. Three types of intermediaries were identified. a. Small scale village level fruit collectors who collect wood apple from wild or home gardens and sell in rural markets like village fairs. b. Medium-sized traders buy fruits from collectors or growers and sell their fruits to large scale traders or in the economic centers. c. Large-scale traders who register in the larger processing factories Most of the medium scale intermediaries reach the production areas at the season and no regular contacts with the grower. Village level fruit collectors live in production areas and operate individually using their own labour and sell the fruits in rural markets. Table 3. Constraints ranking of small scale intermediaries Average Rank Constraint 1 Risk of trading 2 Price low 3 Less quality 4 Seasonality For small scale fruit collectors there s a risk of trading the collected wood apple and they highlighted it as the most rigorous constraint in marketing (Table 3). The village level fruit collectors didn t highlight seasonality as a serious problem as they collect and trade any available fruit during the season. Seasonality was a major barrier for large scale trades who supply

5 Potentials and Constraints for Wood Apple Cultivation in Sri Lanka fruits for processing factories. Most of these large scale registered traders faced the constraints of inadequate supply and low quality of fruits. They incurred high transport costs as most of the production areas were far away from the locations of large scale processing factories. As this survey was undertaken at the off season of wood apple it was a barrier to contact a large number of wood apple intermediaries. Although there are large scale processors of wood apple none of them owned a wood apple plantation. They face problems of inadequate supplies due to seasonality and low quality fruits. The large scale processors mainly used wood apple to manufacture ready to serve drinks, jam and cream. There was no organized programme targeting wood-apple nurseries either by the government or private organization. Private nurseries for wood apple were rare. But wood apple plant could be found used as root stock in the nurseries for the production of bud grafted orange. CONCLUSIONS Considerable area of Sri Lanka has potential for promote wood apple as a commercial cultivation. Wood apple could serve as driver for improving livelihoods of rural communities. There are number of constraints in wood apple cultivation. Lack of high yielding and good quality planting materials, low profitability, unfavorable root characters, and seasonality could be identified as major constraints which avert growers from cultivating wood apple. Improvement of wood apple for commercial cultivation need expert research for development of superior varieties with high yield, good quality fruits as well as better root characteristics. Intervention for improving agronomic knowledge of farmers may solve most of the constraints of growers. High bearing, draft varieties should be bred and promoted ensuring the access of information to the rural grower. It is important to have a standardize planting material distribution process. Strengthening of researches on areas of identification of techniques for pre and post harvest management coupled with effective technology transfer mechanism and credit schemes will probably yield good result for improving wood apple production while improving livelihood of related stake holder. Formation of policies for stable, well vertically integrated supply chains linking agro-processors, exporters, wholesalers and retailers with growers will be necessary for sustain the production chains. The diversification and value addition of wood apple products considering its inherent taste, nutritional value and medicinal value will lead to increase the demand in manufacturing industry and discover new local and international markets. Continuous removal of trees for timber as well as due to less profit and destructive root characteristics seem to be threat of genetic erosion of wood apple species. So it is essential to launch a properly planned island wide program to conserve valuable wood apple germplasm. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to express their gratitude to staff of Data Management Division and Dr. (Ms.) K.W. Ketipearachchi, Fruit research unit II, HORDI, Gannoruwa for providing valuable information and support. Their sincere thanks also go to all the respondents for their valuable contribution during field data collection in spite of their busy working schedules. REFERENCES Department of Census and Statistics (2002), Headcount Index and Population Below Poverty Line by DS Division. Available from: (Accessed 2 nd July 2010). Gunasena, H.P.M., Niranjan, F., Wilson, R.S., Fernando, S. and Wickremasinghe, I.P. (2003). Post harvest processing and marketing of underutilized tropical fruits in Sri Lanka. Jones, P.G. (1991). Climate database version Machine readable dataset, Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, Cali Colombia. Jones, P.G. and Thornton, P. K. (1993). A rainfall generator for agricultural applications in the tropics. Agric. Forest Meteorol. 63:1 19. Jones, P.G., and Gladkov, A. (1999). FloraMap Version 1. A computer tool for predicting the distribution of plants and other organisms in the wild.centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, Cali Colombia. Morton, J. (1987). Wood-Apple. In Fruits of warm climates. Julia F. Morton, Miami, F.L. (ed.), Phillips, S.J., Anderson, R. P. and Schapire, R.E. (2006). Maximum entropy modeling of species geographic distributions, Ecological Modelling. 190, Wickremasinghe, I.P. (2007). Wood apple (Limonia acidissima L.). In: Underutilized Fruit Trees in Sri Lanka, Vol.1,eds. Pushpakumara, D.K.N.G. Gunasena, H.P.M, and Singh, V.P