Spices Board, Rubber Board and the Digital University of Kerala have come together to leverage modern techniques to help cardamom farmers in effective soil management. The joint initiative has shared the MoU to use modern techniques to generate spatial models of soil nutrients in the cardamom tracts and to develop an android based mobile application for cardamom growers to enable site-specific, need-based fertilizer recommendation.

Site-specific nutrient management and judicious use of fertilizers are important for economic and environmental reasons. Indian Cardamom Research Institute, Myladumpara initiated this collaborative project with Rubber Research Institute of India, Rubber Board and the Geospatial Analytics Division of the Digital University Kerala (DUK, previously IIITM-K).

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The project will document major, secondary and micronutrient status of cardamom growing areas and apply geostatistical techniques such as kriging to generate spatial models of soil nutrients and disseminate required information on nutrient management to farmers through an android based mobile application, designed and developed with the expertise of the DUK.

D. Sathiyan, Secretary, Spices Board said that the Board seeks to develop an equivalent of RubSIS app launched by the Rubber Board so as to extend the benefits to cardamom farmers. Farmers will be able to access location-specific soil nutrient status and fertilizer recommendation online, once the geographical location of the holding is identified with GPS. Changes in the fertility status over a period of time also can be assessed with the help of geo-referenced soil fertility maps.

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