With every day dawning with a new pest threat for the Kuttanad farmer, newer methods of tackling the threats are being experimented all across the agricultural belt. And help too, is coming in from various quarters.
After the Kuttanad Vikasana Samithi, which will experiment the tricho card in about 2,000 acres in Kuttanad during this puncha season, the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), a Bangalore-based non-governmental organisation, is now offering the same anti-pest measure with subsidies for farmers in the region.
Surrogate host
Tricho-cards have pasted onto them eggs of a surrogate host infested with Trichogramma larvae, which release pests that tackle other pests like leaf roller worms or stem borer worms, which are common threats in paddy fields. The pests that emerge from the eggs on the card, after doing their job, either move on or die without enough food, thus creating no further threat for the crop.
Each tricho card contains about 20,000 parasitised eggs. Each hectare requires around three to five cards.
The cards are attached to coconut leaves, and are planted among the paddy three to four times every 10 to 15 days.
ATREE, according to its programme officer Jojo T.D., has begun its experiment with the tricho card, which is based on the concept of using lab-reared pests to tackle wild pests.
The card was used in 55 acres in the Aymanam panchayat of the neighbouring Kottayam district from December 19, with the local Krishi Bhavan providing a 50 per cent subsidy and ATREE, another 25 per cent subsidy for the farmer.
Organic produce
Training to use the cards were imparted to the farmers and ATREE is now preparing to take the initiative to other panchayats as well, including those in the Kuttanad belt of Alappuzha district.
No side effects
The tricho cards, they say, do not have any biological side-effects, and with the use of artificial pesticides being avoided, the paddy thus produced can be labelled as organic.
“In fact, the Aymanam panchayat is planning to move for organic certification of the paddy cultivated in the 55 acres where we used the tricho-card,” Mr. Jojo said, adding that ATREE was willing to help any padasekharam samithi in Kuttanad which approached it for assistance in using tricho cards. The Hindu
