Progressive Agriculture

Role of bioagents particularly Trichoderma and Trichogramma in controlling soil borne diseases and insect pests has been well documented. At NARDI, these bioagents were mass-produced and distributed to different villages of eight important districts of A.P. so as to popularize them. Application of T. viride found to reduce plant mortality considerably in cotton and chilli from 18% (before distribution) to 3% in the subsequent years. Inundate releases of T. chilonis remarkably reduced the incidence of cotton bolloworm Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner) and sugarcane early shoot borer Chilo infuscatellus (Snell) to the extent of 43% and 82% respectively. The usage of pesticides and fungicides also come down. Consequent to this, farmers realized better yield and developed positive attitude towards adoption of T. viride and T. chilonis as a component of IPM. In an attempt to identify the constraints faced by the farmers for using bioagents, indequate supply of tricho cards (65%) and distance to production centre (46%) were found to be the major hindering factors.