Novel techniques for home gardening
Jagjiwan Singh and Naresh K. Arora
THERE is much joy in growing vegetables in the home garden, besides getting fresh vegetables for the family. Vegetables are essential to maintain good health as these supply minerals, vitamins, carbohydrates and proteins. In fact, every person needs 280.50 gm of vegetables in his diet per day.

Constraints in fertiliser use in hilly areas
Sanjeev Sandal and Ashok Thakur
IN the hills, a majority of the field crops are grown under rainfed conditions and erratic behaviour of rainfall does not encourage hill farmers to add recommended doses of fertilisers. The per hectare NPK consumption in Himachal Pradesh is only 30 to 35 kg.

Asia’s useful trees and plants
K.L. Noatay
KAIL is a large evergreen pine (plants having thin acicular needle-like leaves) tree. The scientific name being Pinus excelsa, it belongs to the family plant Coniferae. While the species is referred to as blue pine in English, it has several regional names like piuni, nukhtar, biar, chil, chiltu, shomsing, tongschietal, etc.

FARM OPERATIONS FOR JANUARY

Novel techniques for home gardening
Jagjiwan Singh and Naresh K. Arora

THERE is much joy in growing vegetables in the home garden, besides getting fresh vegetables for the family. Vegetables are essential to maintain good health as these supply minerals, vitamins, carbohydrates and proteins. In fact, every person needs 280.50 gm of vegetables in his diet per day. But though people in India are mostly vegetarian the daily diet contains on an average 70.88 gm of vegetable only.

Whatever may be the area in a home garden and whatever kind of soil is, excellent vegetables can be grown. A sandy loam soil with well supplied organic matter is the best for growing vegetables. If the home garden soil is other than sandy loam, add compost of farmyard manure and fork up deeply with the soil. If clayey in nature, add a large quantity of sand and spread evenly. Plough or fork deeply. To reduce acidity, add lime and to reduce alkalinity add gypsum. A soil ph of 6.3 to 6.8 is suitable for growing most of the vegetables. After correction of the soil, as necessary according to the situation and location, the soil should be ploughed to a depth of 10 to 12 inches and then clod should be broken to fine soil, levelled. The soil may be disinfected with Captan, Thiram (50%) half kg per 100 sq. feet mixed thoroughly with soil up to 3 to 4 inches. All soil preparations should be done at least 3 to 4 weeks ahead of transplanting or sowing. The entire garden area should be divided into convenient blocks or plots, keeping paths for cultural operations. The commercial fertilisers are commonly applied by two methods — broadcast and placement. Nitrogen fertilisers are effective as side dressing. Many vegetables are grown by directly sowing seeds into the field. Such vegetables are bean, beet, radish, turnip, spinach, other green leafy vegetable. For sowing such vegetables, the soil of the plot should be very fine, good tilth and porous for good germination. The seeds are either broadcast or in a straight lines. The depth at which it is covered it depends on the size and variety of the seeds. Some vegetables should be raised first in the nursery beds and seedlings transplanted in the main field. Vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, knol khol, tomato, brinjal, chillies etc. fall in this category. On an average the seedlings of 4 to 6 weeks old are ready for transplanting. It is always better to transplant seedlings in the evening. In the final bed seedlings should be transplanted at proper space, plant to plant and row to row which has been mentioned separately. Generally a hole is made with the first finger or with a small dibbler. In each hole a seedling is lowered and soil around the stem is gently pressed. After transplanting water should be sprinkled well so that roots get in contact with the moist soil. Everyday light watering is essential to transplant plants in home garden. At mid period of growth and development, the plants should be given nitrogen fertilisers as side dressing or in band. Weeding should be done regularly. If the plants are attacked by insects and disease, only mammalian toxicity insecticides Malathion (0.1%), Endosulphan (0.05%) or fungicides Copper Oxycholoride (0.5%), Dithane M 45 (0.2%), Bordeaux mixture (1%) should be used. Highly toxicity chemicals may be highly effective to control but as vegetables are concerned due to high residual effect, it may be hazardous to human health. In fact, no chemicals should be sprayed at least two weeks before harvest.

To secure round the year vegetables always a plan should be prepared to grow summer and winter vegetables. The requirements of seeds for approximately 10 sq metre area, time of sowing and distance of planting in home gardening should be as follow:

Constraints in fertiliser use in hilly areas
Sanjeev Sandal and Ashok Thakur

IN the hills, a majority of the field crops are grown under rainfed conditions and erratic behaviour of rainfall does not encourage hill farmers to add recommended doses of fertilisers. The per hectare NPK consumption in Himachal Pradesh is only 30 to 35 kg. Low fertiliser rates and its inefficient use may be attributed to lack of knowledge regarding role of essential nutrients, broadcasting of seed as well as fertiliser with top dressing of urea during crop growth stages, partial response to soil-testing and follow up by farmers, non-availability of fertilisers at doorstep and non-availability of fertiliser kits in small packets of 5 to 10 kg for marginal farmers.

The farmers are made aware of the balanced fertilisation for sustainable crop production through training-cum-demonstration, on-farm testing, farm advisory services, etc. Various farmer-scientist interaction programmes organised by the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Hamirpur at Bara, have indicated that farmers give more attention to rainfed maize with heavy doses of organic manure, line sowing by kera methods (sometimes) and weed management but no basal dose of fertilisers is applied. Top dressing with urea is done which enhances maize crop growth profusely leading to decrease in resistance against insect-pest attack and disease and lodging during speedy winds. The rabi, wheat and other crops are sown without basal application and urea is applied to crop with winter rains occurrence. Imbalance fertilisers application results in poor crop yields.

Non-availability of fertiliser during sowing periods sometimes adds to the failure of these crops. The small and marginal farmers with fertiliser requirements much less than 50 kg bag are reluctant to purchase the fertilisers with a fear of wastage. Small packing of 5 to 10 kg for hill farmers on per kanal/bigha basis rather than on acre/hectare basis as is done for the plains will definitely encourage and convince the farmers for fertiliser application.

Asia’s useful trees and plants
K.L. Noatay

KAIL is a large evergreen pine (plants having thin acicular needle-like leaves) tree. The scientific name being Pinus excelsa, it belongs to the family plant Coniferae. While the species is referred to as blue pine in English, it has several regional names like piuni, nukhtar, biar, chil, chiltu, shomsing, tongschietal, etc. It is a tall tree with nearly horizontal branches. Its bark is bluish grey on young shoots and dark grey on the plant’s attaining maturity. In natural habitat it occurs less in pure stands and more in mixed crop, its other common associates being chir, deodar, fir spruce, rhododendrons, acer, oaks, aesculus, prunus, robinia, etc. It occurs naturally in Trans-Himalayan belt starting from Bhutan in the east, passing through Sikkim, Tehri Garhwal, Himachal Pradesh and further westwards to Afghanistan, etc. Altitude-wise its habitat constitutes terrain from 1500 to 3500 m above mean sea level. Biologically, it is a hardier than other Himalayan pines like chir, deodar, firs, ets. It flourishes better on sunny aspects, is quite fast growing but shortlived as compared to other pines.

In higher reaches of its habitat, kail is often found growing in mixed crop comprising higher pines like fir and spruce at altitudes varying from 2000 to 3000 m above sea level. In lower slopes it is found growing with chir pine, oaks, rhododendron, etc from 1200 to 1800 m. In fact it tends to be a less gregarious than its other pine associates.

Kail has bluish green to grey needle shaped leaves. These are 12 to 20 cm long and are clustered in bundles of five. Flowering of kail occurs in April-May. The male catkins are 7 to 10 cm long. Female cones are longer and bigger. These occur at the end of the vegetative shoots and are usually in bunches of two-three together. Matured cones measure 15 to 30 cm in length and are cylindrical in shape. Young cones start appearing in May-June. These ripen by September-November. The scales are woody and slightly bent with their tips being obtuse. Kail seed is small in size about 5 to 7 mm long and 2 to 4 mm thick. It has a nearly 7 to 10 cm long wing, which helps it reach for-off locales for natural propagation of the species.

The wood of kail is moderately hard. It has annual rings which not only help in determining the age of the plant but also in beautifying the grain of the finished wood products. The sapwood is while in colour. The heartwood is light red. Of the common conifers, in matter of preference carpenters, it (kail) comes next to deodar for use in interior decorative wood work such as planking and furniture joinery. Some carpenters, in fact, consider it even better than deodar for indoor work as it is less oily.

Kail yields a better quality of turpentine oil than that obtained from chir resin, but its forests being not easily accessible. It is not subjected to resin tapping on commercial scale. The tapping has in fact been carried out on experimental basis only.

The kail plants as well as its wood are highly susceptible to attack by common insects and fungal parasites like arceuthobium minutessimume. The serious most damage is caused by pine trametes. The fungus can attack even the heartwood. The malady, however, does not kill the tree altogether. The disease spreads more viciously in stands subjected to loppings by villagers who use the lops and tops of dry as well as green tree for firewood, etc. The disease also spreads below ground level through roots, if and when the roots of a healthy tree come in contact with those of a diseased one. A fungus named as peridermium brevius occurs on kail needles as pale yellowish or orange coloured swellings. But it hardly causes any harm to the plant.

Kail is quite a fast growing species. It can attain a height of about 30 m and a girth of 2 to 2.5 m in nearly 70 to 80 years of its existence. On good soil and favourable environment it can even attain a height up to 45 m and girth up to 4 m.

In favourable environment natural regeneration of kail comes up easily and in good abundance in freshly exposed slopes, especially recent landslide areas. It generally tends to suppress the deodar saplings because of its comparatively faster growth. It, however, does not do so well in wet depressions and or areas receiving a heavy rainfall.

In fact kail is a very good coloniser for covering recently exposed slopes and or landslides. Being a fast growing plant it acts as a good nurse tree for the economically more useful species like deodar and firs. And once these superior species gain momentum in growth, they often displace the host from such locales as are more favourable to the competing latter.

So far as regernation of kail is concerned new crop can be obtained by broadcast sowing seed directly in already prepared ground patches. Raising seedlings in nursery beds or in polythene bags can also be resorted to for ensuring cent per cent success in stocking the vacant patches and plots.

FARM OPERATIONS FOR JANUARY

WHEAT:

— Apply the second irrigation to wheat sown during November and the first irrigation to wheat sown during December. To late-sown wheat, apply the remaining dose of N along with the first irrigation.

— Progressive Farming, PAU