Experts give tips on crop care in rains

Ludhiana, July 19

The Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has issued advisory to the farming community for monsoon. According to the advisory, farmers should let the water stand in paddy field only for two weeks and irrigate them two days after the ponded water has infiltrated into the soil. They should apply second 1/3 dose of nitrogen 21 days after transplanting.

For cotton, the requirement is to eradicate weeds, like kanghi buti, peeli buti, puth kanda etc, growing on cotton field bunds, waste lands and roadside. Whitefly also attacks other alternate host crops, like brinjal, potato, tomato, okra, moong, mash and guar, so regular surveillance should be done and leaf curl virus infected plants should be uprooted and destroyed from time to time.

Experts said sowing of moong (ML 1808, ML 2056 and ML 818) should be done during this period as delayed sowing results in lower yield. Vegetable crop should be irrigated at weekly intervals. This is the right time for sowing of Punjab Suhawani variety of okra and Cowpea 263. For sowing bottle gourd, sponge gourd, bitter gourd, ash gourd, tinda etc, 2 kg seed should be used per acre and 1 kg seed per acre for wanga. Transplanting of early varieties of cauliflower can also be done.

In case of heavy rain, farmers need to drain out the excessive water from orchards. They should not allow water to stagnate around tree trunks and keep the basin of plants slightly higher than rest of orchard soil. Whitewash mixture containing copper sulphate should be applied on the main trunks of fruit trees to protect them from diseases, the experts added. —TNS

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