The production of good quality seedlings is very much essential for getting high yield and superior quality of any crop. In the past, the farmers themselves used to produce the seedlings required for transplanting at a lower cost, as most of the vegetable varieties were of open pollinated types. Now days, intensive vegetable cultivation using high yielding F1 hybrids is being taken up by farmers to enhance productivity. As the seeds of hybrids are sold at very high price, converting every individual seed into a healthy seedling becomes essential and this requires intensive nursery management.
. If farmers have availability of quality vegetables seedling round the year, they can grow early/offseason vegetable that will fetch them higher price. But presently there is no concept of vegetables seedling growing in Jharkhand by government, private company or any other agencies. Our effort is to train the farmers for growing vegetables seedling of his own use and once he is well trained, he can grow seedling at large scale to cater the needs of other farmers in nearby areas.
Normally the farmers in Jharkhand are growing vegetable seedlings in open field under raise bed system but there is no control over environment & growing media. The farmers in Jharkhand are well trained in vegetables cultivation under open field without the aid of any technologies. But farmers understands the importance of early/off season vegetables, our effort is to train them so that they can grow nursery round the year and so that they can grow early vegetables under conventional practice without the availability of other plasticulture technologies. Some of the farmers are using low tunnel/poly tunnel (with plastic film, shade net material & insect net proof material) under raised bed system to protect their nursery from low temperature during winter, high temperature & light intensity during summer and rainfall during rainy season.
The virus free healthy vegetables seedling can be grown in plastic pro-tray. But there is need to provide suitable environment for growing nursery under pro-trays. There is need to enhance the soil & air temperature during winter season, reduce the soil & air temperature & light intensity during summer season and protect the seedling from rain water/hail storm during rainy season.
During rainy season there is need to protect the nursery from high rain water and for that cladding the low tunnel with plastic film is required. Once the cladding of low tunnel is done with plastic film there is increase in temperature inside the low tunnel and normally during rainy season there is rarely need to enhance the air temperature. So during rainy season also insect net proof material can be permanently fixed to low tunnel and ventilation or removal of plastic film can be done based on rainfall or low tunnel air temperature.
The low cost detachable roof greenhouse can also be used for round the year nursery raising in pro-tray but to improve the economics and to get hands on experience on various aspects of environmental factors, it can be done successfully under plastic low tunnel. To improve the economics under detachable roof greenhouse, the multitier nursery can be considered keeping the required environment parameters and ease of management under multitier system.
The selection of right kind of seed, selection of growing media, its mixing & disinfection, selection of tray, filling of tray, seeding, irrigation & fertigation, environment management, insect & disease management, disinfection of tray & its reuse etc. are important points need to be considered for growing the nursery successfully.
Protrays are shallow plugs in which germination media remains warm & provides better aeration and seed are sown directly into plugs. The weeding and thinning is easily carried out in such protrays. Coco peat, a by-product of coir industry having high water holding capacity is commonly used as media in protrays. It has 6 times water holding capacity to its weight and should be supplemented with nutrients. The sterilization the growing media is essential to reduce diseases and pest introduction & attack. Other recommended media are Coco peat + vermi-compost or vermi-compost + sand or soil loam + FYM in equal proportion.
It is observed that the availability of coco peat is not very common in local market or even though in some cases it is available, its price is creating hindrance in adopting it as a growing media with vermi compost/FYM for seedling growing. So there is urgent need to find out the substitute of coco peat with locally available compost, rice husk, suitable soil, sand or any other locally available material which can be used with vermi compost/FYM for vegetables seedling growing.