Germinating brinjal ..

Brinjal is one of the short term crops we plan on cultivating this season. The idea for a short term crop was to generate some income to pay part of the expenses. Given that it was our first time, we defined a list of criteria for selecting the right crop. The ones we came up with were the following

• It should be easily marketable in the local/surrounding markets. 

• A crop with relatively less price fluctuation. 

• It should respond well to drip irrigation (According to one of the TNAU studies, yield of brinjal under drip is 2-3 times more than conventional irrigation)

• Crop that is not too labour intensive with minimal to moderate water requirement.

• It should respond well to inherent soil and climatic conditions.

Keeping the above criteria in mind, Brinjal came out as a strong contender.

So we started our brinjal nursery in early September and by early October, the seedlings should be ready for transplanting.

Beds of size 2m x 5m were made. Periphery of the bed was dug about 6-8 inches deep and then soil was turned over the bed.

Later, it was found that 2 m was too wide..so we split it into half. So the bed dimensions are 1m x 5m .
20 square meters of bed area should be sufficient for 0.5 acres of seedlings.

An elusive recipe was then concocted...Elusive because more the people I talked to, each came up with his own recipe..Eventually I just took the common denominators and the mixture was spread evenly over the bed

So here it goes -
Urea - 250 gm/bed
Furadon - 50 gm/bed
FYM - 5 Kg/bed
Vermicompost - 5 Kg/bed
Phosphate - 750 gm/bed

A V-shaped cross section stick was used to make grooves across the beds (where seeds were planted)

Brinjal seeds were treated with Trichoderma viride (5 gm) which is a fungicide.

Treated seeds were placed in the grooves.

Paddy waste was spread evenly over the bed. This is used to develop a conducive environment for favourable germination and prevents spilling over of seeds while irrigating.

A sneak peak at 5 days..

At 12 days!

A closer look!!

Day 18..


















I am also planning to germinate some seeds in portray. It would be a great experiment to evaluate if seedlings germinated in portray are in fact healthier and yield more. If it is, then my next crop would be in germinated in portrays. More of that in the coming weeks..