Despite corporate success, Vikrant Kale longed for open fields. In 2017, he took a life-altering step: quitting his engineering job to return to farming in his hometown, Wakadi near Shirdi.

Farming wasn’t new to his family. His grandfather and father had embraced crop diversification, shifting from wheat and sugarcane to pomegranates and guavas.

This spirit of experimentation became Vikrant’s guiding principle as he dared to attempt the unimaginable: apple farming in Maharashtra’s scorching 44-degree heat.

When most people thought of “apples,” their minds wandered to Himachal’s cool valleys. Vikrant challenged that stereotype.

He envisioned fresh, juicy apples grown locally so consumers in Maharashtra wouldn’t have to rely on produce that lost flavour during long-distance transport.

In 2019, he purchased 400 saplings of the Israeli ‘Ana’ variety (bred for warmer climates) into his fields.

With wide spacing between rows, he smartly grew onions and soybeans in between, ensuring productivity while waiting three years for the first apple harvest.

Today, Vikrant’s two-acre orchard produces 12,000–16,000 kg of apples annually, fetching him Rs 4–5 lakh per acre. With pride, he says his yields match those of Himachal’s orchards, proving skeptics wrong.

Vikrant expanded into exotic crops like white jamuns, avocados, and pink coconuts across 40 acres. His white jamun cultivation earns him Rs 8–10 lakh per acre.

Not all experiments succeeded. Kiwi plants failed under Maharashtra’s heat. But each setback refined his knowledge. “Farming is about trials, errors, and adapting,” he says.

For Vikrant, farming is not just a tradition. It’s a science. He calls it “a game of intellect,” demanding planning, climate adaptation, and strategy.