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| AGRICULTURE TRIBUNE | Monday, March 5, 2001, Chandigarh, India |
Earthworms’ role in soil
biology Asia’s useful trees &
plants Control rice diseases
by seed treatment Mushroom for health,
wealth
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Earthworms’ role in soil
biology INDIA’s current manurial potential of livestock and human excreta is estimated at 13.84 million tonnes of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium nutrients which is close to the present fertiliser consumption of the country (12.7 million tonnes). A few more million tonnes can be made available from crop residue, municipal solid waste, agro-industrial waste, industrial waste, etc. Careful collection, scientific conservation and recycling of all these available organic wastes/manures would enable India to meet its nutrient requirement of the crops to a considerable extent and thus develop its agriculture on a sustainable basis. India generates around 25 million tonnes of municipal solid waste every year and about 60 per cent of the waste comprises of biodegradable organic wastes originating from kitchen and markets. In addition, 273.3 million tonnes of crop residue and 6.02 million tonnes of fruit waste is also generated every year. This waste material can be processed with the help of earthworms in order to produce the cheap organic fertiliser at site without any extra cost. Earthworms play a key role in soil biology by serving as versatile natural bioreactor, converting organic wastes into valuable organic manure. The benefits are now being globally realised that earthworms can do wonderful job in the management of different pedo-ecosystems. They are useful in land reclamation, soil improvement and organic waste management. Earthworms are also efficient environmental monitoring tool because worms can accumulate certain heavy metals, industrial effluents, various biocides, pesticides and their residues. Earthworms improve the soil texture, soil aeration, enrich the soil with nutrients and promote useful soil micro flora required for plant growth. Earthworms eat and mix a large amount of soil and organic matter, then deposit their castings (vermicompost) either on the surface of the soil or in burrow, depending on species. The vermicompost contains high concentration of organic material, silt, clay and is rich in many soil nutrients such as nitrogen, sulphur, potash, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, etc. In soil, much of the phosphorus is bound in organic matter in a form that is not available to plants. Earthworms change the phosphorus into a form that the plant roots can easily absorb. The mixing action of the earthworms can also make slow-release forms of phosphorus fertilisers more readily available. Vermicompost is also rich in growth hormones, vitamins and acts as a powerful biocide against diseases and nematodes. Earthworms also produce enzymes which break complex biomolecules present in the garbage into simple compounds which are utilised by the micro-organisms. The micro-organisms in the worms gut also produce useful compounds like antibiotics, vitamins, plant growth hormones, etc, all of which are present in its castings. The earthworms provide ideal temperature, pH and oxygen concentration for the speedy growth of useful bacteria and actinomycetes and thus has a microbial density of about 100 times greater than in surrounding soil. More than 3000 species of earthworms are known and out of which 384 species have been identified in India so far. In one hectare of soil, rich in organic matter and good moisture content, one can expect a population of 50,000 to 4,00,000 earthworms and which are able to produce 25 to 30 tonnes of castings. Earthworms are hermaphrodites (bisexual) and they can double their population in one month in ideal conditions of temperature, moisture, food (organic matter), etc. All types of earthworms are not useful in vermicomposting programme. The species eisenia foetida and lumbricus rubellus are better for composting in temperate climate. Where as endrilus eugeniae and perionyx excavatus are good for tropical climate. The other useful species for Indian climates are lampito maruitti, dichogaster bolaui, drawida willsi, etc. While introducing the culture of worms, live worms should not be taken out from the soil and transported to the new environment. Worms may die due to change of environment and transport shock. Vermicompost produced by the works should be used. Vermicompost harbours earthworm cocoons and a wide variety of beneficial soil micro flora. Earthworms hatched in altered environment are able to adapt better to the new environment. Cultures of live worms reared on organic substrates are also marketed by some companies which can be used for making of vermicompost. Technology is available for making vermicompost at domestic level to industrial level. Conversion of urban garbage (organic solid wastes) into vermicompost can be done at two stages; one at the domestic level by each household and the other at big vermicompost units to bio-degrade the garbage of a city or locality. The first most important step in solid waste management is segregation. Organic wastes from kitchen and markets should be separated from recyclable waste like plastic, paper, glass leather and inert debris, and should be put in separate containers. This would help in proper disposal of the solid waste. At the domestic level, culture of earthworms can be directly added to the container used for organic wastes from kitchens and markets. The earthworms will convert the waste into vermicompost. Organic solid wastes from different localities of a city can be converted into vermicompost in big plants. Some organisations in Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh are engaged in degrading the city garbage into useful organic manure. In Cuba, the vermicomposting programme was started in 1986 and by 1992 there were 172 vermicomposting centres in the country producing 93,000 tonnes of vermicompost. In a situation where conservation of energy and resources is considered to be important, a community or a country should make every effort to recycle all agricultural, urban and industrial organic wastes back to agriculture and thus the system would be needing only a very small input of new resources to top up soil fertility. This will not only ease the pressure on scarce petroleum products needed for the production of inorganic fertilisers but also help in maintaining the soil health, clean environment and sustainable growth in agriculture. |
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Asia’s useful trees &
plants OEE or black siris is a fairly large deciduous and yet beautiful tree found growing in submountainous tracts i.e. at the foot of the Shivaliks and or the valleys between the Shivaliks and the outer Himalayan ranges. Its scientific name is albizzia odoratissima. It belongs to the mimoseae plant family and is a common sight in terraced paddy fields which have sufficient water or moisture. It is also grown artificially in tea gardens as a nurse plant for the young and tender tea bushes. The natural habitat of oee comprises of foothills from Burma in the East to Afghanistan in the West. It is also found growing in convenient low lands and or undulating slopes in central, western and southern India and also is Sri Lanka. It is quite common in mixed forests of miscellaneous species from 300 m to 1000 m above mean sea level. The trunk of oee tree is of a general dark appearance. Its bark is nearly 5 mm thick and dark grey in colour. The leaves are compound rachis, each 10 to 20 cm long, downy, with a gland near the base. The pinnae constitute 3 to 8 pairs, each 8 to 15 cm x 5 mm in size. The flowers appear during March-April. These are light yellow panicled inflorescence, 20 to 40 cm long. The fruit pods appear during June-July, ripen by October and seed ripens to be fit for collection by December-January. The oee is a fairly fast growing tree. On an average it puts on nearly 1.5 cm thickness (diameter) in a year. It can attain a height of nearly 30 metres and a girth of 1.5 m in about 60 to 70 years, depending upon the suitability of the supporting soil. The siris wood is fairly light (20 to 22 kg to a cubic foot) and yet hard and durable. The sap wood is white, while the heart wood is dark brown. It seasons well, takes good polish, is durable and is as such used in building construction as well as cart wheels, oil mills, furniture, etc. Oee sapwood exudes dark brown gum which is utilised in ayurveda as well as
Unani systems of medicine for cure of haemorrhoides, food poisoning, etc. The green twigs and leaves of oee are lopped for cattle fodder. Oee comes up naturally from its seed in suitable natural habitat. It can also be raised in nurseries from seed and subsequently transplanted in suitable vacant and comparatively wet patches of land. Keeping in view the serenity that oee tree lends to the environment and enchantment to the landscape, its utility as a fodder tree and a reasonably good timber that it yields, it is highly desirable that the people owning vacant land and or otherwise having access thereto must plan the maximum number of oee plants in own interest of the present generation as well as the future ones. |
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Control rice diseases
by seed treatment RICE an important kharif crop of Haryana and Punjab. A number of diseases are known to attack rice crop. However, foot rot/bakane, brown leaf spot, blast and bacterial leaf streak diseases are of seed-borne in nature. To mitigate the crop losses from these seed-borne diseases, seed treatment is of paramount importance. For obtaining good quality seed from a given seed lot, the seed is dipped in 10 per cent salt solution (1 kg common salt in 10 litres of water) and the diseased/light seeds and other foreign material floating on the surface of salt solution are removed and destroyed. The seed settled below in the salt solution is taken and washed thoroughly three to four times with fresh water to remove salt from seed surface. Any salt deposition left on the seed surface may hamper germination of seed. A 10-litre salt solution is sufficient for selection of 10 to 12 kg of rice seed. Seed, thus, obtained by soaking in salt solution should be used for chemical seed treatment. For chemical seed treatment, 10 g Emisan-6 and l g Streptocycline are dissolved in 10 litres of water. Seed is soaked in the above solution for 24 hours. A 10-litre solution is sufficient for treating 10 kg of seed. Treated seed is then allowed to germinate in moist cloth for a couple of days. This treatment is very economical and efficient and cost incurred towards seed treatment is only Rs 10 to Rs 12 per 10 kg of seed. For the effective management of foot rot/bakane disease, chemical seed treatment is the only alternative and there is absolutely no control measures so far once this disease appears in the field. Taking into account the low cost and good impact of seed treatment on seed-borne disease management, the seed treatment practice should be adopted widely in dwarf and basmati varieties of rice. |
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Mushroom for health,
wealth MUSHROOMS have been treated as a delicacy or special kind of food since time immemorial. Romans considered mushrooms as “food of gods” and Chinese declared them as “elixir of life”. Mushrooms are considered to be higher fungi and belong to subdivision basidiomycotina of the plant kingdom. They inhabit almost every environment but prefer humid and hot areas. Mushrooms, like many other fungi, are responsible for the degradation and transformation of plant and animal substances, thus restoring soil fertility and maintaining biological equilibrium. Europeans always regarded mushrooms with suspicion and were afraid of the toxic or lethal properties of some species. Mushrooms extremely toxic to both animals and humans do exist. In Ayurvedic Medical Dictionary (1962) mushrooms have been mentioned as body builders and curative agents for some stomach ailments. In the modern medicine also edible mushrooms, including button mushroom agaricus bisporus, oyster mushroom (popularly known as dhingri), pleurotus spp. and paddy straw mushroom, Volvariella ssp. commonly cultivated commercially in North India, are considered useful in the treatment of certain infectious diseases through antibiotic production, for lowering of blood cholesterol level and for their anti-tumor, purgative and/or sedative properties. Mushrooms are one of the richest sources of protein, second only to meat and possess all essential amino acids, minerals, vitamins, etc, in adequate quantities. Composition of mushroom (on dry weight basis) Crude protein: 27-35% Total sugar: 45-60% Crude fat: 2-3% Ash: 2-4% Crude
fibre: 9-13% Fresh mushrooms contain 87-90% water. In spite of this, the per capita consumption in India is only 1 gm compared to over 2 kg in some developed countries. Thus, there is a great scope for increasing consumption of mushroom in soups, snacks and curries. As already mentioned, the climate of Punjab and some adjoining states is best suited for the commercial cultivation of mainly three types of mushrooms, button mushroom, the oyster mushroom or dhingri and the paddy straw mushroom. These three types can be grown in different seasons, thus making it possible to grow mushroom round the year. A grower must possess adequate knowledge of the growing technology and its economics. Base culture, training facilities and package of practices for mushroom cultivation are available at several neighbouring institutions, including Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, the CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, the National Research Centre for Mushrooms, Solan (HP), and progressive growers. The overall economics of mushroom cultivation depends upon initial investment and the scale of cultivation (cottage level, large scale or commercial scale, cost of labour and raw materials and fluctuations in the selling price of the produce. At the cottage scale, more appropriate for rural people having little or no land holding, with a covered space of just 10’x10’x10’ a farmer can earn a profit of over Rs 7000 annually by following appropriate rotation. At a higher scale, cost of cultivation is proportionatley reduced and the profits go up. Mushrooms can be marketed in fresh, dried or powdered form. Marketing is a specialised job. Lack of an organised channel forces most of the growers in Punjab to dispose of their produce in the local markets or in Delhi. Hence there is a tremendous scope for the spread of mushroom growing in this region by encouraging proper packaging and processing, hence long distance transport and export. Growing of mushrooms is an ideal income generating activity for small and marginal farmers as well as landless unemployed rural and urban youth. |
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Wheat: — Apply last irrigation to the normal sown wheat crop around March 15. However, late sown wheat may be irrgated depending upon the weather conditions. — By this time the plants affected with flag smut disease become quite visible. These should be rouged and destroyed so as to reduce the inoculum in the field. Remove loose smut infected ears from the field kept for seed production. — Check attack of aphids by spraying 150 ml of Rogor 30 EC or Anthio 25 EC or Metasystox 25 EC or Nuvacron 36 SL in 80-100 litres of water per acre. — Army worm and gram pod borer larvae feed on developing grains of wheat. Control them by spraying 200 ml Nuvan 85 SL or 800 ml of Ekalux 25 EC or 1.2 kg Sevin 50 WP in 100 litres of water per acre. Summer pulses — Start sowing summer moong (SML-32 or SML-134) and summer mash (Sathe mash, i.e. Mash-414 or Mash-218) from middle of March onward. Use 10 kg of seed rate per acre for summer moong and 20 kg per acre for summer mash. Apply 11 kg of urea and 100 kg of superphosphate at the time of sowing. If mash or moong follows potato, then there is no need to apply any fertilisers to these crops. — Weeds in summer moong can be controlled by spraying Basalin 45 EC (Fluchloralin) @ 600 ml/acre on well prepared seedbed and then sow crop on the same day or spray Stomp 30 EC (Pendimethalin) @ 1.0 litre/acre within two days of sowing. For spraying herbicides use 150-200 litres of water per acres. Oilseeds — Protect pods of raya from alternaria blight by giving one spray of 0.25% solution of Indofil M 45 (250 g in 100 litres of water). — Check mustard aphid on raya/gobhi sarson by spraying 400 ml of Metasystox 25 EC or Rogor 30 EC/Thiodan 35 EC/Anthio 25 EC of Malathion 50 EC or 600 ml of Dursban/Coroban 20 EC or 100 ml of Dimecron 85 SL in 100 litres of water per acre. Spray the crop either morning or evening to avoid killing of pollinators/natural enemies etc. — If the severe attack of hairy caterpiller/semi looper is seen in sunflower crop, then spray 500 ml of Thiodan 35 EC or 200 ml Nuvan/Divap/Vapona 85 SL in 100 litres of water per acre. These insecticides will also control jassids and other sucking pests in case they appear. — Irrigate the sunflower crop at two weeks interval. Sugarcane — Complete sowing of sugarcane by the end of this month using recommended varieties i.e. CoJ-85, Coj-86, Coj-83, Cop-211, Coj-64 (early maturing), Coj-82, CoJ-84 and CoS-8436 for mid season and Co-1148 (late maturing) varieties. — The seed selected for planting should be free from red rot, wilt, smut, ratoon-stunting and grassy shoot disease. Disinfect cane setts in 0.5 per cent (500 g in 100 litres of water). Agallol (3%) or 0.25% (250 g in 100 litres of water) solution of Aretan (6%) Tafasan/Bagallol (6%)/Emican (6%). — To check the attack of termite and early shoot borer to the germinated crop. Sprinkle on cane setts in furrows at the time fo sowing, 2 litres of Lindane 20 EC diluted in 500 litres of water or 7.5 kg granules of Sevidol 4:4 G (Gamma BHC+Carbaryl) per acre. — Application of Atrataf 50 WP (Atrazine)/Sencor 70 WP (Metribuzin) or Klass/Hexuron 80 WP (Diuron) @ 800 g/acre as pre-emergence application provide effective control of annual grasses and broadleaf weeds. — Sugarcane may be planted after applying 65 kg urea per acre. Apply 1/3 rd N (30 kg N or 65 kg urea/acre) at the end of March to the autumn crop. — One row of summer moong/summer mash or mentha can be intercropped without any adverse effect on the cane crop. — Progressive Farming, PAU |
