Revival of solanaceous vegetables cultivation in the bacterial wilt disease prone areas of Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh

In Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, the main solanaceous vegetables grown during summer includes brinjal, tomato, chillies, and capsicum. but these crops suffers heavy losses due to bacterial wilt disease. To tackle this problem, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kangra took up the task to identify the bacterial wilt resistant varieties among varieties of diverse origins by conducting ‘On-farm Research Trials’ under participatory mode with vegetable growers of the region in the farmers’ fields under mid hill conditions considered a hot spot for bacterial wilt diesese. The best performing varieties viz. Arka Keshav (long type), Arka Nidhi (long type), Arka Neelkanth (long type), Pusa Anupam (round type)and Hissar Shyamal (round type) of brinjal; Palam Pink, Palam Pride and F₁ 7711 of tomato and Surajmukhi of chilli. have been popularized by conducting ‘Front Line Demonstrations’ and ‘On farm Trials’ for large scale adoption, resulting in the replacement of more than 100 ha area with the high yielding disease resistant varieties. However, none of the bell pepper varieties was resistant to the disease. To make available the planting material/seedlings of these resistant varieties about 70 low cost protected structures of varying sizes (40–500 sq m) constructed by farmers have been adopted for technical support and supply of quality seeds of different vegetable crops. These protected structures are proving very beneficial to raise nursery of different solanaceous vegetables for early transplanting in February which otherwise is not possible under cold weather conditions till March.