50 Days - The good, bad and the worst !!!

 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 .. !!