Its been a roller coaster ride with lots of tensions and running arounds for the past one month or more. There has been lots of unexpected incidents that have made us stand on our toes literally and run around.
Now i have learnt some very important things that i should have paid attention to but did not due to lack of knowledge. i have not come across such points anywhere on the net.
1) Rains are the worst enemies for green house farmer especially if you have not thought about the levelling of the land and drainage of rain water. The land where i constructed my farm is a general low lying area and my ill fate was so bad that i fell sick with kidney problem and was bedridden for a week and the same time heavy rains flooded the whole vilages and becoz of the low lying area .. my farm was the point of slope for all the water from upper fields and the results was that my farm got flooded and there was water flowing the walkways .. like its their father's property ... damn ...!! all i could do immediately was to let them go out as soon as possible.. !! Then had to do the damage control procedures like making the drainage channels, making bunds from the main sites where water is flooding inside, channelising the water to other side of road etc.
2) Fumigation was such an important step which i did not pay personal attention to and am paying a heavy toll for that now .. Aniketh irrigation guy did the fumigation with H2o2 but then it was not done the right way i suppose .. coz i have been facing lots of issues with soil related problems .. first i see some mites and i immediately did a round of chloropyriphos and then it was solved. Then slowly Crown rot and root rot kind of started emerging .. the affected plants looks very today and by tomorow they will wilt and slowly die off.. all i can do is feel sad about the dying plant and continue on with the schedule of systemic fungicides that were prescribed for the same !!
3) Leaf Miner and Nematode infection also surfaced randomly and i pulled off the leaves and threw them far away from the farm. For the Nematodes neem cake was advised but raking of the soil has to be done before that and also neem cake supossedly raises teh soil PH and i did not wanted to try that now as i did not find any serious nematode infestation.
4) Since it was rainy season housefly is a very disturbing creature especially the small juvinile ones which keep running into the eyes. Sumhow these like the plants in my farm and lots and lots of them started to sit on the leaves and were troubling me. A round of malathion Spray did the job to some extent and then i had to take care of other problems that are there in the farm.
5) Calcium chlorosis, Iron chlorosis deficiency symtoms started flooding in due to the water logged conditions and then had to supplement them additionally with spray once in a week .
6)Growth Stunting is the most serious concern that i am currently facing right now in my gerbera plants. There has been an attack of Red spider mites and these tend to cause the young leaves to curl and not grow furthur. This is a major stress on the plants and they wont let the Gerbera grow any furthur nor does any new leaves come in. The plant simply start to stunt and if not taken care of wil eventually die of slowly. Spraying of OMITE and Wettable Sulphur alternately once in a week are most effective solution, but even then the plants take a real lot of time to come out of the disease and springout new leaves which are healthy. Hundreds of plants are effected with this growth stunting and Red spider bug some beds are worst then what they were intially when planted.
7) The good plants which have survived well also started showing some weird brown patchy drying up of leaves and its increasing since yesterday. The KF bioplants People are suposed to come tomorow to do the visit and do the suggestions .. i am so scared and worried about the farm. Almost tears are rolling in the eyes to see the plant growth. I have beeen doing soo much of hard work for this but still things arent going smooth. I dunno if i am immateur and need experience or its just my ill fate.
The good part about the past 50 days is that i have started the fertigation schedule from past one month and it has boosted the plant growth in many plants. Increased foliage and lush green color but this is only in those plants which have not been affected by stunting !! Some beds look soo very healthy and green .. if only all the 200 beds were like that ... i would have been on cloud nine by now ..
The Best part in the whole bad situation is that .. After 44 days of plantation the first flower has emerged!! And what a coincidence it was my Birthday too :) it was an orange colored Gerbera - Goliath variety.
Soon lot more plants which have recovered from stunting and started growing in the past few weeks have started pushing out buds .. Orange followed by whites .. then yellows and red buds are just coming up .. !!
