“Key Informant Survey” of Production, Value, Losses and ... - DfID

he has found this as very reasonable.
COWPEA & PESTS Trailing type of cowpea is mainly grown in pandals. Cowpea aphid and
leaf miner is the major pests and mosaic and collar rot are the major diseases. For
aphids and leaf miner attack malathion and metacid were used and for collar rot
fungicides like fenvalerate or blitox were drenched in the field. He grows this crop
due to its luxuriant vegetative growth (leaves can be used as mulch) and reproductive
growth (producing more number of fruits per plant) and hence fetch good price in the
market.
AMARANTHUS & PESTS In amaranthus cultivation he notes leaf webber as the major pest
and wilting and leaf spot as the major diseases. Since the leafy portion of the plant
is consumed as a vegetable he avoids using any chemicals but during extreme case of
attack he drenches the soil with supernatent solution of cow dung, malathion and
fytolan mixture.
CUCUMBERS & PESTS He grows creeping type of cucumber plants. The damage by leaf hairy
caterpillar, mosaic and premature drying of fruits were noted (might be due to vine
breakage during cultural operations). He opines that there is market fluctuation in
the price of the crop, so it is not extensively grown.
GOURDS & PESTS Cucurbits like snake gourd and bitter gourd are grown especially
during January-March and September to December. Various cultural operations for both
these crops are almost the same. The main pests for snake gourd is fruit fly,
followed by snake gourd caterpillar and the disease mainly includes mosaic, little
leaf and downy mildew. In bitter gourd plots also he observed fruit fly as the major
pest followed by small mites sucking the juice of leaves. The disease noted was
little leaf, bacterial wilt and mosaic. According to him nearly half of the fruits
were damaged by fruit flies. Snake gourd caterpillar mainly eats the leafy portion
and it doesn't affects the fruit. But the maggots of fruit flies exploit the pulp
inside and thereafter the entire fruit will turn yellow and thus making it unfit for
consumption i.e., it actually reduces yield. So he is more worried about the attack
of fruit fly. Coming to the disease he is equally afraid with little leaf and mosaic
since the crop will be stunted in its growth and no new flushes will be produced
thereby preventing flowering.
GOURD PEST CONTROLS During that time he used to spray either Malathion or fenvalerate
whichever is available in the market. But spraying was not effective and he changed
different chemicals from time to time to reduce the attack. He is not interested in
spraying chemicals in his field, but to avoid heavy crop havoc he sprays fenvalerate,
malathion in his cucurbit fields. For fruit fly control in both cucurbit fields he
practiced using banana traps after attending the training programmes of extension
department. Now he practices 'palayamkodan' fruit pieces (i.e. after taking a single
banana fruit he removes the skin and cuts it in to two pieces and then smeared with
furadan granules on the surface of fruit)in coconut shell along with spraying
malathion + jaggery mixture. Traps containing banana will be removed every week and
spraying will be done twice in a month. Another control measure is that he collects
such fruits and throws it in the canal. 'Thulasi' is considered as a holy plant and
he knows it as a natural repellant to many pests. As banana is easily accessible he
is more fond of using banana traps. He was unaware of starch -jaggery or fish traps .
He knows that any sweety material along with some poison attract the fruit flies.
ORGANIC/EXPORT PRODUCTION He cultivates little gourd (koval) exclusively for export
purpose and hence organic products are used in the farm. For cultivation in that
particular field he uses organic manures like poultry manure, farm yard manure and
coconut cakes. When disease or pest incidence occurs he manually collects the damaged
fruits and destroys. If incidence is very severe he sprays neem based preparations
like neemazal or neem oil but actually he is less bothered about the pest/ disease
attack in his koval field. According to him he is not facing any financial loss by
IMFFI Semi-Structured Interview Survey - 31 of 66