The ODC drumstick grown in bidar karnataka by a genius software Engineer …inspite of all the hurdles like black cotton soil and heavy downpour he has made it a success so far and continues putting up best effort to bring it to showpiece in the location …Truly high density planting with 1500 plants per acre and looks amazing …
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Share original location of this form.
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Hope you have proper plans for the sale. Do keep us updated.
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You can call shri.Srinivasan 9620919782 for location details
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RAMU sir, is black cotton soil not suitable for drumstick , what problems does it cause
how to deal with it, and how was done in this case.
The root structure of moringa is peculiar that it looks almost like tubules with more pithy centre and in case of black cotton soil or any other hard soils where drainage is a serious problem the excess water due to poor drainage fill the tubular roots resulting in root rot disease / death / dysfynction of roots that in turn prevent the uptake of nutrients and water with the lower leaves first turning yellow and later progressing to other Parts of the plants upwards …
The technique for successful cultivation of moringa in heavy soils is to adjust the time of sowing well after monsoon rain is over and to adopt sowing the seeds in raised bed that provides cushion for development of new breathing roots in order to survive prolonged water stagnation …
Another measure to address similar kind of problem is to administer nitrogenous fertilizers like urea as foliar spray to revive the plants from nutrient starvation during flooding of the field …
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Ramu Sir, thank you very much for in depth and valuable information as always,
It is allright …wish you a successful farming
After cessation of monsoon rain and over two rounds of fertigation now the ODC moringa plantation has revived and started picking up growth fast , with flower initiation noticed in about 25% of the plantation
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Hello Sir,
I am pretty impressed by your plantation of moringa trees in black cotton soil.However, I have little apprehension of planting moringa trees in black cotton soil as we have more than average rainfall here in Nagpur. Also our black cotton soil has high water retension capacity.
So apart from raised beds and timing of plantation , what other precautions should I take before planning for Moringa?
This post is from 2017. How is the progress so far?
What else have you tried with this soil?
I have a similar mixed soil in the same region. Would like to know what else works there. I may go for Mango varieties if nothing else comes by.
Dear Ramu,
Gettings!!! Im Amit from Gulbarga Karnataka. I will be soon planting ODC3 on 1 acre black soil land (drip irrigation ). Since I’m new to farming have partnered with my cousin for trying it out on his land. You are just amazing with your effort on giving advise. Appreciate your time and effort for the community.
I have a similar issue. Its a 1 acre black cotton soil, previously nothing has been cultivated. Land is almost leveled but still water docent percolate enough if heavy rain and this stagnation might happen only in certain area or everywhere i have to yet find out but it looks like the soil dosen’t drain so well. Other than following your suggestions like bio culture fertilizer, raised bed etc would it be better to dig trenches by mapping contour of the acre for better water percolation ???
Replies much appreciated. Thank you for your time and effort.
Dear Mr Jainshankar .
Good …Apart from raised bed and time of sowing , do provide drainage by digging drainage channel along the general slope prevailing in your land .
You can plant intercrop like chillies over the raised bed .After the harvest of chillies , when the plants are pulled out ( uprooted ) the roots would have left many pores / holes that would provide breathing space for moringa roots .
Or sow green manure seeds like sunhemp as intercrop and in about 50-60 days cut all the sunhemp plants , burry and cover it with soil along the rows of moringa tree . Before that , sprinkle / broadcast gypsum @ 400 kgs per ha over the sunhemp plants and then cover it .
This will allow the sunhemp to decompose and make the black cotton soil feel loose around the rizhosphere .
The idea here is to make the soil loose and allow enough breathing space for the roots of moringa .All the best