Alcohol can also be used on chillies and capsicum …but be careful about the quantity. Capcium and chillies , unlike Brinjal is a delicate crop that can be given alcohol treatment just 21 to 27 days after transplanting . If you can get mollasses , better replace alcohol with mollasses…
Regarding Moringa PKM 1 , you need to establish the right source of seeds . Of course lot of seed companies in India are selling PKM 1 seeds but it shows variation in fruiting and yielding behaviour …
The main reason is the hormonal changes inside the plant system that convert vegetative shoots into reproductive / flower bearing shoot is partly gene controlled …
The moringa is predominantly self pollinated crops although cross pollination is inevitable , mainly by insect / bees that visit moringa flowers from 6.00 AM to 9.00 AM and pollination continues till 3.00 in the evening …hence the variation
But the people producing PKM seeds for commercial sales bestow least attention in segregating the mother plants before collection of pods for seeds and they consider only bulk quantity for sales purpose
so first you can collect PKM 1 seeds from a repute company/ Source , plant it in your field , observe for flowering and bearing characters and mark only good quality trees that produce more flowers , do air layering in such a quality drumstick tree and use these layered plant for further multiplication in your own field ( Kind of clones that does not show variation )
I would like to share one beautiful experience with gibberellic acid(GA3) in this context.
Couple of months back I was growing watermelon and I applied 5 grams of GA3 in 200 liters of water instead of 20 liters and as a result I noticed more number of Male flowers instead of female flowers. Luckily I happened to spray after 40 days when approximately 70% of fruit was set. It was too much for me to dig out the science behind this phenomenon. Never shared this incident with any of my on-farm friends to save myself from the Knock-Down match
I actually did this experiment to improve pollination as there were very few honeybees. Not sure if my experiment was appropriate in the first place.
If at all GA3 had helped pollination atleast, then as per the literature the fruits should not have had too many seeds. But in my case I could see the fruits filled with abundant seeds. So got a bit confused in total.
Also read that beyond 600 PPM of GA3 application will not produce flowers neither male nor female.
Great Mr.Guru…At least you have tried to experiment with GA3 and tested the literature about flower induction …
The GA 3 applied in overdose really does not produce female flowers…Your observation is cent percent correct .
However the GA3 application find effective use if sprayed 3-4 times from the time of production of second true leaf until the vine start running over with first fork with first flower that usually abort or become infertile …This process last between 15 to 36 days after sowing …
SO 4 rounds of spray of GA3 @ 250 PPM at 7 days interval at 15,22,29,36 th days will produce more female flowers in watermelon…
Because this is the right stage the plant prepare itself for hormonal changes that produce more female flowers in lieu of male flowers …That means the male flowers are converted into female flowers …
So here lies the secret i.e., to spray 3-4 times @250 PPM during the vegetative stage. I will apply this to my ash gourd, the seeds of which I have sown couple of days back (15th May) on the same beds of watermelon as the plastic mulching was nearly intact. I will update the outcome in the days to come. I actually wanted to try seed treatment of Ash gourd seeds with GA3 to break seed dormancy (as it was predicted that the next few days would be cloudy and may not be favorable for germination). However, dropped the idea of seed treatment with GA3 fearing the result of my 1st experiment under ignorance. So just ended up soaking 1 kg of seeds in 20 grams Trichoderma+20 grams pseudomonas florescence+100 grams of humic acid powder in 5 liters water for 12 hours. Not sure if this mixture helps in enhancing seed germination in particular.
One concern. I was charged around 300 Rs for 5 grams of GA3. As I understand, for every spray I would need 50 grams of GA3 to prepare 250 PPM solution in 200 Liters water. Therefore cost of GA3 for each spray would cost 3000 Rs multiplied by 4 times = 12,000 Rs. My question is would this cost be recoverable vis-a-vis increase in production by virtue of more female flowers resulting in increased chances of pollination? Or are there any brands in the market which sell for less?
You are right of course about cost of the GA3 …Kindly recheck price of GA 3 with other source …
When cost of cultivation goes high we need to find ways to cut the cost
However there are some varieties of watermelon that are exported to overseas countries and even find use in star hotel in India fetch more price . In that case you can increase the yield by applying GA3 ,the cost of which can be offset easily by increased yield and price …
If GA3 is not affordable then you can very well try Ethrel in place of GA3 …
i am new to agriculture, planning to start of with vegetable cultivation. reading your threads was like practicals for me, i meant to say the detail explanation was so good as visualizing it has really motivated me and given me inner strength. thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and wish you a big success in all the projects you take up.
Hope to meet you one day.
Dear pal …Thanks for your regards…I appreciate your interest in Agriculture…
There are lot of professions for lot of persons on this earth and many of that bring huge income in shortest time period …
If you are a high profile businessmen you can earn millions of rupees overnight
If you are a doctor/Physician ,you can earn laksh of rupees overnight
If you are an ITean , you can earn laksh of rupees in a month
But Agriculture keeps you waiting for long like months or years to see the income …
But
You can feel always fresh through seeing and feeling the green vegetation that alleviate your stress and strain but the persons practicing aforesaid professions often undergo stress and strain …
Green vegetation absorb all the air pollution around particularly CO2 and SO2 and gives out pure O2 for breathing
Green vegetation keeps your health nice and superb
No need to practice daily exercise…Working in the field is like practicing all forms of YOGA …
Yet you can earn like Businessmen, Doctor and ITean when you do agriculture with all technical nuances and scruples
-Know about your location - soil, weather and water position
-Select elite hybrid vegetables that are demanded in the market
-Apply Hi-tech production technologies to harvest more yield in an unit area
-Quality control in the field as well as post harvest operation like sorting and grading
-Forming Farmers club /FPO
-Linkage with local and distant market
-Value addition
-Logistics and supply chain …
Wish you all the best in your new endeavour in Agriculture …
As measure of soil improvement practice , we have sown sunhemp green manure utilizing recent hail storm …it sprouted well …Sure this sunhemp will be ready in another one month period for use as organic source of Carbon and Nitrogen
1.It adds organic carbon to soil microbes
2.Adds organic nitrogen for subsequent crops cultivated in the land
3.Improves soil structure and prevent soil erosion and increase soil aeration
4.Prevent the crop damage due to soil born pest and disease …
Practically speaking , Sunnhemp does not need so much water …It belongs to leguminaceae plant family like black gram, green gram, beans etc …Excess water is detrimental to the plant growth …
For first two weeks light soil moisture is enough for germination …This moisture can be provided either by rainfall naturally or soil moisture present after harvest of paddy in river delta region or light irrigation…
Next irrigation can be given 3 week later or a month time depending upon your soil …If your soil is clay or loam you may give subsequent irrigation a month later .
If your soil is sandy or gravel you may need to give subsequent irrigation in about fortnight time …
Of course any plant needs water for its growth and development .No plants grow without water .
In this case of sunnhemp green manure crop it is minimum soil moisture that suffice
Regarding cost of sunnhemp cultivation it is as follows
Seed rate per acre - 10 kgs in case of good quality seeds or 15 kgs in case seeds are poor in germination …
Seed cost Rs.100 / kg for good quality and Rs.80 for poor quality
Only seed and ploughing costs are counted here
In our case we could not irrigate the sunhemp field …we relied on rain water and our soil is sandy gravel with poor water holding capacity
However we did sow the sunhemp seeds 3 weeks before recent rain …That is we anticipated summer shower that is usually expected to be around 100 mm that is enough for germination and early growth of any plants …Unfortunately we did not receive any summer shower …instead hot sun with mercury level around 40 degree celsius prevailed .3 weeks after sowing all the sunhemp sprouted well on account of recent hail storm at our site …we are not watering sunnhemp …
we are waiting for rain …if no rain in next 10 days we will resort to spraying water by hose pipe …
Our Brinjal planted on 25 and 26 th December 2015 started yielding from 18 th February 2016 …Until now yielded around 15,000 kgs from 2000 plants …average yield of around 7.5 kgs per plant …we are preparing our brinjal plants for extended harvesting with further yield of 5.0 kgs per plant and total of around 10000 more kgs …
so our aim of harvesting 100 MT per acre is within the limit of achievement …
Now the plant is crossing an age of 159 days …
All the lower limbs and weak branches are removed that will help divert the necessary nutrients and water to initiate and grow new flushes with new flowers and fruits …
An artificially induced light stress followed by administration of carefully designed nutrients mixture and hormonal regulation will regenerate and revitalize the the plants by arresting senescence …
40% pruning has been done. This will save 50% of water and 60% of Nutrients and produce 25% extra more flowers and 90 % first quality marketable fruits
Improve more air circulation and sun light penetration
Excellent. When i visited, it was so bushy with lot of dead leafs, weak branches & fallen fruit due to excess heat. Now it looks awesome. With lot of ariation, sunlight. There were already good number of flowers & busy bees working on those. I think showers will spur growth of new branches. Wish you good luck. Pretty sure you will surpass your goal. Did you apply any pesticide after pruning? Thanks.
Yes we sprayed pesticide , but it is organic pesticide called Tracer 45 SC being a microbial extract …At this temperature of around 35 degree celsius , the synthetic chemical will not work as it disintegrate in the excess heat and broken chemical compound add poison into the eatable fruits besides killing pollinators …so organic/microbial pesticide is the best option…Also this tracer is a wonderful organic pesticide with excellent control on borer as well as some sucking pest …Dose is 1 ml product in 6 lit water …scheduled at 4 days interval …Once the weather changes during onset of monsoon that reduce prevailing temperature below 32 degree celsius we will resort o chemical pesticide on need basis only
Dear friend
Artificial stress can be induced by withholding water for about a week time or fortnight depending on your soil type or prevailing weather in your location .When the water content inside the plant cell goes decreasing the leaves and branches will start drooping but not necessarily wilting or drying …
After a week time ,one full irrigation/watering is done that makes the plants absorb more water and spurt new growth that needs more nitrogen that is supplemented through Urea
The Hormonal regulation is done through spray of NAA ( Napthalene Acetic acid ) being synthetic version of IAA ( Indole Acetic acid ) that is naturally produced by plants and originally found in the growing apical meristem ( fresh terminal growth with newly produced cells ) .This will escalate new growth with lot of branches and flowers …
Inspite of hailstorm and flooding in the recent past , we could manage to induce flowering in Moringa PKM-1 in about 4 1/2 months …Generally moringa starts to bear flowers in about 150-160 days and some time even at 180 -210 days …
Fortunately we happen to induce flowers through split application of Ammonium sulphate and Sour curd solution …
After pruning and induced light stress for a week time , the brinjal were administered with Water soluble fertilizers and more Urea through drip irrigation , and given Panchagavya spray …
All the plants again started producing huge flowers like earlier time …way of keeping the brinjal to produce fruits continuosly
I have 45 days old brinjal plants. There is a massive attack of red mites on the plants making the back side of leaves as red.
After 2/3 days the leaves are turning light yellow.
