Department of Agricultural Entomology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003, India.
Survey has been conducted among the farmers in Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu to examine the storage structures, storage behavior and their method of storing pulses. From the survey conducted we find that bag storage is the predominant storage structure used for pulse storage. Biscuit tins are used for storing small quantities (five Kg) of pulses especially for seed purposes. Some of the pulses were stored as pod itself. Celphos tablet fumigation is the common practice followed by the farmers. Sand layers of 2 and 3 cm thickness on the top of the stored seeds were used by most of the farmers. Red earth treatment for cowpea seeds, red gram, black gram and green gram seeds is done one week after the harvest and stored in gunny bags or baskets. The average life period of these structures range between 2–3 years. The storage loss estimated at the farm level indicated highest loss in black gram (40%) followed by green gram (30%), cowpea (30%), bengal gram (20%), mochai (20%) and red gram (10%). This loss pertained to two months of storage period.
