Seed Health Management for Better Productivity - Govind Ballabh ...

(Seed Health Management for Better Productivity)CMP farmers can reduce cost of production, minimize losses due to pests and diseases, increasebenefit-cost ratio and raise value-added crop. Small farmers are experimenters and inventors.Improving farmers’ ability to manage disease requires knowledge, capacity for innovation and on-farmdecision-making. Through farmers’ field schools farmers have been oriented to learn necessity ofadoption of CMP and the role it can play in bringing sustainability into their agriculture.Through adoption of Common Minimum Programme losses through seed and soil bornediseases as well as insects could be severely minimized. The ultimate aim is to raise healthy plant,which can resist/ withstand attacks of biotic and abiotic agents. This is achieved through maintainingmicrobial diversity in the soil, creating conditions suitable for their growth and development throughproviding habitats for their growth. Common minimum programme tends to fulfill these objectives.Through the adoption of CMP farmers can reduce cost of production, minimize losses due to pestsand diseases, increase benefit-cost ratio and raise value-added crop. During initial few years, CMP isbeing adopted by over 3000 farmers from 55 villages in districts Tehri, Pauri, Almora, Champawat,Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar. Depending on the extent of damage to the soil ecology throughindiscriminate use of chemicals, varying degree of success has been achieved. However, withcontinuous adoption of CMP success rate can be quite high. Thus, the ‘zero’ or ‘low cost technology’while on one hand offers a solution to the recurrent diseases and pest problems, on the other falls within the framework of organic farming, which is the state policy. To the predominantly agrarian economyin the state, CMP can prove handy to the small farmers in the years to come. There, however,remains the necessity to enforce implementation of CMP through extension functionaries in the statefor its widespread adoption and implementation. On similar lines, such plans that apply ecologicalprinciples in pest management need to be developed for other crops.REFERENCES1. Altieri, Miguel A. 1994. Biodiversity and Pest Management in Agroecosystems. The Haworth Press,Binghamton, NY. 185 p.2. Marschner, H. 1998. Soil-Root Interface: Biological and Biochemical Processes. p. 191-232. In: SoilChemistry and Ecosystem Health. P.M. Huang (ed.). Soil Science Society of America,Inc., Madison, WI.3. Phelan, L. 1997. Soil-management history and the role of plant mineral balance as a determinant ofmaize susceptibility to the European Corn Borer. Biological Agriculture andHorticulture. Vol. 15. (1-4). p. 25-34.4. Daane, K.M. et al. 1995. Excess nitrogen raises nectarine susceptibility to disease and insects.5. California Agriculture. July-August. p. 13-18.6. Schneider, R.W. 1982. Suppressive Soils and Plant Disease. The American PhytopathologicalSociety. St. Paul, MN. 88 p.7. Metcalf, Robert L. 1993. Destructive and Useful Insects: Their Habits and Control, 5th ed. McGraw-Hill, NewYork, NY.8. Zhu, Y., H. et al. 2000. Genetic diversity and desease control in rice. Nature. 17 August. p. 718-722.9. Leslie, Anne R. and Gerritt Cuperus. 1993. Successful Implementation of Integrated PestManagement for Agricultural Crops. CRC Press,Boca Raton, FL. 193 p.- 217 -