REINTRODUCTION OF BRINJAL IN VEGETABLE BASED CROPPING SYSTEM

Due to the very perishable nature of vegetables and fluctuating prices, farmers spread their risk by growing a range of vegetables of differing keeping quality, input requirements and skill. Farmers of Kestur village, could not cultivate brinjal, a less water demanding crop than tomato for the last 10 years due to severe incidence of ash weevil and nematode at early stage and fruit borer at harvest stage resulting in less marketable produce. The inter-disciplinary team of IVLP of IIHR, Bangalore interacted with the farmers recommended soil application of Carboturan 3G at 10 kg/ha at planting and spraying of Cypermethrin at 0.5 ml/lt. four times at 35 days after planting repeated every 15 days, resulted in good establishment of seedlings but INR.10,000/- per hectare spent on pesticides resulted in high cost and more pesticide residues and hence was not sustainable. This problem was tacked by the IVLP team using the plant products to control the nematode; a component of IPM technology standardized by IIHR, Bangalore. On-farm trials indicated usefulness of soil application of neem cake at 250 kg/ha at transplanting and three sprays of Cypermethrin at 0.5 ml/lt. resulted in effective control of ash weevil, nematodes and fruit borer and enabled farmers of Kestur village to cultivate brinjal once again and increase marketable yield by 20% but this again was not cost effective.