Tamil Nadu - Udhagamandalam   

Workshop stresses need to focus on soil health

For healthy crop: Farmers participating in a workshop in Udhagamandalam on Monday.

Udhagamandalam: ‘Only a healthy soil can ensure a healthy crop’.

This was underscored at a workshop on ‘Organic Cultivation of Cut Flowers’ organised jointly by the Department of Horticulture and the Mumbai-based Excel Crop Care here on Monday.

Over 125 floriculturists from various parts of the Nilgiris district benefited.

In his inaugural address, Assistant Director of Horticulture A.J.Jagadeesh Kumar said that indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers in the cultivation of cut flowers had not only harmed the soil but also affected the quality of the end products.

The conditions in the Nilgiris were most conducive for promoting organic floriculture. Being a hi-tech crop, farmers would not find it difficult to switch over from a conventional system to a new one.

Judicious use of organic fertilizers would help control pests and diseases and also bring down the cost of cultivation, he said.

Since the quality of the stems would be good and the crops would not be affected by diseases such as leaf spot, they would command a good price.

General Manager, Excel Crop Care, Sushantha Kundu, said that experiments conducted with organic inputs in a number of farms here had produced good results.

General Manager (Crop Care) Nirmal Raj said that the use of organic inputs would help the soil release nutrients that were essential for the crops.

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