Syngenta India, an agri-business company that offers crop protection solutions, has tied up with Super Spinning Mills (SSML) to introduce "Quantity & Quality" (Q&Q) project in cotton under contract farming in Tamil Nadu. The two companies have successfully tried out the `Syngenta Q&Q programme aimed at enhancing the per acre yield and the quality of cotton through a designed solution package extended by Syngenta.
Having tested the crop solution concept in Super Spinnings R&D farm last year, it was introduced as a pilot project on 500 acres contracted by the SSM in Salem districts Edapadi tract to raise "Surabhi" and MCU-5 varieties as summer crops.
The significance of the crop solution technology offered to the growers. It is centred around seed treatment aimed at improving germination (between day zero and day 45) and monitoring the plant between the "day 45 and day 100" when cotton plants are vulnerable to pests attacks, especially the "pink bollworms". This is done through a combination of precision farming and integrated crop management (ICM).
The crucial "flowering, boll-formation and busting" stages are subjected to rigorous monitoring to not miss out on identifying the pest eggs and application of right quantity insecticides to avoid pests developing resistance. This helps to bring down the application of pesticides in the contracted farms to just six rounds from the conventional 10 rounds.
SSML, which provided the inputs like seeds, also arranged micro-finance for the farmers through State Bank of India and offered guaranteed buyback at premium price. The project was supported under the front-line demonstration of the technology mission on cotton (TMC), which financially supports popularising spreading of the good crop practices. SSML intended to extend the project to other areas in Tamil Nadu (Vazhukuparai), Hubli (Halihal) in Karnataka and Jammiguntta in Andhra Pradesh.
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| Posted : 8/5/2006 |
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