EFFICACY OF MICRONUTRIENTS AND MICROBES (LEAF SURFACE MICROFLORA) ON TASAR SILKWORMCROPIN BIOSPHERE OF BASTAR (CHHATTISGARH)

Traditional farmers of tasar culture adopt their own system based on their indigenous knowledge for maintenance of tasar host plants and silkworm rearing. As the silkworm rearing is totally left on vagaries of nature like temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind etc. and exposed to parasite, predators and diseases, no care is taken in traditional method to improve the quality of leaf of food plant resulting in larval susceptible to diseases followed by low productivity of cocoons. Micronutrients to raise leaf production and microbes (Leaf Surface Microflora) to control bacterial and viral diseases were tested individually for three years and collectively for one year. Both the technologies were developed at CTR&TI, Ranchi, Jharkhand (India). The performance of micronutrients and microbes are equally good in significantly improving the crop yield over control. Efficacy of these technologies were different for different parameters, however, their cumulative effect was more than their individual performance. Leaf yield was enhanced upto 6001000 kilograms per hectare per crop with the enhancement to the tune of 7 to 20%. Hence, the integration of these technologies facilitates crop stability and associated profit.