Use of cover crops like Mucuna is an eco-friendly technology for efficient and sustained control of all weed species including the most noxious Cyperus. Being a legume, Mucuna, also improved the soil physical, chemical and biological properties in a significant way which helped the subsequent crops to enhance growth and productivity.
Processes for the extraction of volatiles of neem cake using hydro-distillation procedure and enrichment of inert carriers is developed. Release of volatiles in cropped area at regular intervals through inert carriers is highly effective in repelling diamond backmoth of cabbage and other insect pests of horticultural crops. Volatile compounds, namely, caryophyllene oxide, limonene, linalool and 1-hexanol identified in the volatile fraction are found to be responsible for insect repellant action of neem cake.
An eco-friendly formulation was developed and tested in farmers’ fields in the Konkan region for the successful control of the spongy tissue disorder in Alphonso mango. The technology entitled” Eco-safe formulation for the management of spongy tissue in Alphonso mango” involves pre-harvest spray of the environmentally-safe formulation “ Saka Nivarak” on fruits twice at 10-day intervals between 50 to 70% maturity stages. The incidence of spongy tissue on sprayed fruits was less than 2% as against 54% in control.
