Indigenous Farming :: Indigenous Technical Knowledge
RED GRAM
- Spray the decoction of tobacco waste to control sucking pests and cater pillars.
- Red gram seeds are mixed with red earth slurry, dried and stored to avoid storage pests.
- Castor seeds are fried, powdered and mixed with red gram seeds to reduce pest attack during storage.
- Storing the red gram seeds after mixing them with 'sweet flag' (Acorus calamus) powder @1 kg. per 50 kg of seeds to preserve them for one year.
- Dry the red gram seeds well and store them in gunny bags after placing dried leaves of 'Naithulasi' (Ocimum canum) inside them to prevent pod borer attack. (Also for black gram)
- Putting the pods of dried chillies in the red gram container to control bruchids (beetle) attack.
BLACK GRAM
- When a wooden plank is moved with pressing over the drying gram, splitting of gram indicates optimal drying.
- Bullocks pulling a heavy stone roller are allowed to trample over the harvested black gram crops spread out in the threshing yard so as to separate the grains.
- Yield will be higher in black gram crop, if it is sown in the second fortnight of September.
- Neem oil is sprayed @ 6 lit./ac. to control powdery mildew in black gram crop.
- Mixing the black gram seeds with ash and storing them in earthern pots for longer period (Also for cow pea and green gram).
- Coating the black gram with castor oil to increase the keeping quality.
- Mixing the black gram with sweet flag (Acorus calamus) powder for seed purpose.
- Black gram grains broken into halves will escape from weevil attack during storage.
COWPEA
- Putrefied buttermilk is sprayed on cowpea crop to control yellow mosaic disease. (Also for green gram)
- Vegetable oil is mixed with cowpea before storage.
- For safe storage, cowpea seeds are filled in earthen pot to its 4/5th volume and the remaining volume is filled with ash. (Also for field bean)
- Mix cowpea seeds with red earth slurry, dry and store them in earthen pots for one year.
GREEN GRAM
- Mixing the green gram seeds with sand before storage.
PEAS
- Raising the peas during January (i.e.) during heavy mist time reduces the plant growth and leads to poor yield.
- Three harvestings with 10 days interval to ensure good harvest.
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