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CORESTA Meeting, Agronomy/Phytopathology, Rovinj, 2009, AP 19

GreenTech : A novel technology for tobacco transplant production

SRINIVAS P.; MANI M.
ITC - ILTD Division, Rajahmundry, India.

Tobacco growing regions in India face unique challenges while raising good quality transplants. It is a well established fact that the choice of variety and healthy transplants are the foundation to deliver economic returns to the growers. Achieving favourable farmer economics solely depends upon the grower's ability to enhance productivity and it has been proved beyond doubt that deployment of Hybrids plays a protagonist role. However, hybrid seed production involves intensive labour for pollination and hence the hybrid seed has to be judiciously used. The traditional seedling production on plant beds requires 20 g of seed to produce seedlings for planting 1 ha. Only about 10% of seed is effectively utilized for producing healthy transplants. The "GreenTech" methodology aims at enhancing the "Seed Use Efficiency", multifold to >85%. The technology makes use of a low cost polyhouse designed to offer protection against weather (rain and scorching sun), Germination trays for producing seedlings which can be utilised for resetting into High Impact Polystyrene Trays and Cocopeat based growing medium. Traditional fertiliser mixtures are replaced with Water - soluble and speciality fertilisers (WS & SF), for enhanced nutrient management, and use of minimum Crop Protection Agents (CPA). This novel technology offers twin advantages of enhancing seed use efficiency and production of healthy transplants with optimum use of natural resources. Engineering design, process parameters, cost benefit and economics of the system will be discussed.