Pune: The flowering season at Maharashtra’s Kas plateau is likely to be slightly delayed this year, with the monsoon’s timing and rainfall affecting the bloom cycle.Flowers usually begin to appear in Aug, but experts and local tourism officials expected the main burst of colours to emerge from mid-Sept this year, with peak flowering likely towards late Sept and early Oct.“There are very few flowers as of now. The usual ones like terda, ran halad (wild tumeric) have started to appear. It is a bit early to know what kind of blooms we can expect for karvi,” said Datta Jagtap, a Satara-based environmental researcher and conservator. Even though the flower festival had not officially begun at Kas, there were already a lot of visitors. “There was a 3km-4km traffic jam when I visited Kas two days ago. The weather is fantastic and people are already visiting the plateau and nearby attractions,” said Jagtap.Umakant Chavan, an environment researcher, said, “We are expecting abundance of blooms at Kas. Although flowering will be late, it will most likely be more than last year. The weather pattern has been conducive to flowering and ground water levels have risen substantially.”Nature lovers are also planning their visits to Kas plateau based on peak flowering periods.“We had initially planned to visit the plateau in the first week of Sept, when crowds are expected to be less. However, owing to delayed flowering, we will visit end-Sept,” said Neha Sharma, a resident of Baner.The big attraction at the Kaas plateau is the karvi, a light blue-purple flower, which is expected to bloom in pockets at the plateau later in the season. Other popular flower species that people are interested in seeing and photographing include the Mickey Mouse flower, balsam, lladderwort, abhali and the carnivorous plant sundew.Tour operators are also planning a bulk of their plateau tours towards the middle or end of Sept. “We have many enquiries for Kaas and are planning to start regular departures from mid-Sept. Permits will have to be purchased accordingly,” said a local tour operator, who arranges departures to Kas from Mumbai and Pune.
