Pomegranate (Anar)

1. Land Preparation Pits 2 x 2 x 2 ft with 15 kg farmyard manure, spacing 15 x 12 ft. Pomegranate is the crop for the Kohat and Bannu piedmont precisely because it takes drought, heat and mildly saline land that would kill citrus — but it still wants…

Both Sowing Feb–Mar Harvest Jul–Aug 100–180 maund per acre

Land Preparation

Pits 2 x 2 x 2 ft with 15 kg farmyard manure, spacing 15 x 12 ft. Pomegranate is the crop for the Kohat and Bannu piedmont precisely because it takes drought, heat and mildly saline land that would kill citrus — but it still wants drainage.

Sowing Time & Method

Plant rooted hardwood cuttings or nursery plants in February–March. Bedana is the famous soft-seeded local type of Kohat; Kandhari is harder-seeded and travels better.

Seed Rate & Treatment

Hardwood cuttings from a known healthy mother tree root readily and cost nothing — this is the one fruit where your own cuttings are as good as bought plants, provided the mother tree is free of bacterial blight.

Fertilizer

Per bearing tree per year: 25–30 kg farmyard manure in winter, 1 kg urea, 750 g DAP and 750 g SOP. Split the urea — half at bud burst, half after fruit set.

Irrigation

Every 15–20 days in summer. The critical rule is CONSISTENCY: fruit cracking, which ruins more Kohat pomegranate than any pest, is caused by a heavy irrigation or rain after a dry spell during fruit development. Little and regular prevents it.

Weed Control

Weed Damage Control Product
Purple Nutsedge (Deela) Fills the basin through the summer and takes the water and nitrogen from the tree's shallow feeder roots. Repeated basin hoeing before the tubers spread
Bermuda Grass (Khabbal) Mats over the basin of young plants and drinks the irrigation before it soaks to the roots. Dig it out with a kasola, roots and all; keep the basin bare
Horse Purslane (Itsit) Carpets the basin after monsoon rain and takes the water and nitrogen while the fruit is filling. Hand weeding after each rain, before it seeds
Field Bindweed (Lehli) Twines over the suckers and low branches and smothers the new shoots that should carry next year's fruit. Pull the vines off the tree and uproot them with the suckers
Congress Grass (Gajar Booti) Stands thick in the basins in summer and takes the water and nitrogen while the fruit is sizing. Uproot before flowering; mow the inter-rows

Keep basins clean and remove the suckers that come up from the base constantly — pomegranate suckers freely and an unmanaged tree becomes an unpickable thicket.

Insect Pests

Anar butterfly (fruit borer) is the single biggest loss — the caterpillar bores into the young fruit and you only find out at harvest. Bagging the fruit at marble size is the most reliable control. Whitefly and mealybug also occur; bark-eating caterpillar tunnels in old wood.

Diseases

Bacterial blight (telya) is the disease to fear — black oily spots on fruit and stem that split open, and it spreads in rain. There is no cure once a tree is badly infected: cut out and burn affected wood, and never take cuttings from that tree. Fruit rot follows cracking.

Crop Care

Keep 3–4 main stems and remove the rest. Pomegranate bears on spurs on 2–3 year wood, so light thinning beats hard cutting.

Harvesting

Cut with a secateur when the fruit sounds metallic on tapping and the calyx closes inward. Do not pull. Handle once — a scratched pomegranate turns black at the mark within a week.