In what is seen as rural innovation for agriculture crops, a farmer from Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district is using his homemade mixture with ingredients ranging from asafoetida to gau mutra (cow urine) to fight pink bollworm in the cotton crop.

Chandubhai Baraiya, 43, from Piprala village of Talaja taluk, undertakes cow-based farming on his 10 bigha (approx 5.7 acres in Gujarat) land for five years.

“Last year we had pink bollworm attack in cotton crop. Most farmers were clueless about how to deal with it, but I found the solution in my homemade mixture. And it proved effective as well,” said Baraiya, who now guides other farmers of nearby villages to prepare the mixture.

This year, Baraiya has taken up maize and vegetables including brinjal on his land.

The Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) has been tracking the pink bollworm issue for about two years. Pink bollworm is a monophagous insect (single host pest), found in cotton and okra.

Crop cycle extension “Gujarat is a case study for us as it is not prevalent in other parts of the country. Constant surge in cotton prices during past four years prompted these farmers to extend the crop beyond its normal cycle of 6-7 months. This caused this pest to appear,” said KR Kranthi, Director, CICR, Nagpur. A CICR team is currently in the State to study the bollworm menace that’s prevalent in the irrigated belts of Saurashtra and north Gujarat.

Earlier, cotton crop used to be terminated post-December. The pest develops during summer months, but in the lure for more profits, farmers took early sowing during summer months. Notably, the pest is immune to the available BG-II seed, hence there is no remedy for the pest at present.

Having learned from Babariya, Rohit Ramna from Chudi village strongly believes that it was due to this mixture, he could save his cotton crop last year and get an output of over 50 quintals.

“My cotton was sold very fast because of good quality. I could save it from the attack as was faced by other farmers in the region,” he said adding that just like other farmers he too used Bt seed.

This mixture helped him save a cost of ₹45,000 on pesticides or insecticides. The mixture is sprayed every 10 days to the crop.

“Initially, for about couple of years, you get lower output. But as the land gets used to such mixtures, the output as well as quality improves,” added Ramna.

The mixture According to Babariya, the base of the mixture requires extremely sour 11 litres of buttermilk (stale about 30 days old), green chilli, garlic, crown flower leaf, eucalyptus, dhataki (dhatura) leaves, pomegranate leaves, asafoetida and 250 ml of kerosene and 500 ml of gau mutra.

The ingredients are mixed thoroughly and placed in a copper vessel wrapped with an airtight paper cover and kept for about 10 days.

“Mix one cup of this mixture with 400 ml of water and spray it on 10-day old cotton plants. If there are pests, it will get suffocated and if there are eggs, they won’t hatch. This avoids damage from pink worm,” he said.

Scientific measures According to Bharat Char, Lead-Biotechnology, Mahyco, the homemade method needs to be documented for scientific analysis.

“If there is anything credible in these claims that needs to be validated. Data will be required and for that the practice needs to be documented,” said Char.

Notably, some of the farmers in Gujarat have expressed fears of a repeat of pink worm attack this year as well. Already 8-10 per cent of early sown cotton crop has been removed suspecting presence of pink bollworm attack.

State agriculture department also acknowledged the panic due to pink bollworm attack. “We have planned short-term and long-term measures to tackle this menace. We are planning week-long awareness drive for farmers on how to control it,” a government official informed.

comment COMMENT NOW