Farmers told to adopt drip irrigation system for banana, mango
Special Correspondent
Namakkal: The district Agricultural Engineering Department has asked the farmers of banana and mango crops to adopt drip irrigation system, which, it points out, is highly economical and has many advantages.
According to the executive engineer of the department, drip irrigation scheme is being implemented in the district with 50 per cent subsidy for 2007-08 under the Centre’s Micro Irrigation Scheme. Mango and banana will be covered under this subsidy scheme this year.
Under this scheme, a farmer can get subsidy to a maximum of 5 hectares of land with the maximum subsidy of Rs. 9,000 a hectare for mango and Rs. 27,500 for banana. The target for the district is Rs. 26.37 lakh of subsidy for an area of 293 hectares for mango crop and Rs. 1.10 crore for an area of 400 hectares for banana crop. A total of 15 drip irrigation firms have been approved under this scheme.
By adopting the drip irrigation, water can be applied at the right time at right place in required quantity. This also facilitates irrigation of additional area with the available well water in the farm. Requirement of irrigation labour is nil and also can be mixed with soluble fertilizers.
This can also reduce the wastage of fertilizers. Fertilizer intake by the crop is also maximised. As the water and fertilizer are directly applied to the root zone, the possibility of weeds sucking the nutrients is minimised.
The Namakkal Collector G. Sundaramurthy has asked the eligible farmers of mango and banana to approach the Office of the executive engineer at Namakkal and assistant executive engineer at Tiruchengode for assistance, he adds.
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