Monday, 14 September 2015

Choosing the Crops (Groupwise) based on Shelf Life

As part of our Agriculture for Everybody blog series, we are going to see how to Select the Crops (Groupwise) based on Shelf Life.

We have already seen several options of choosing the crops.  One more addition to that can be the following.

Generally, most of the crops we produce have short shelf life.  In this scenario, the farmer is forced to sell the produce immediately as the produce gets rotten easily.  It would be prudent on the part of the farmer to allocate a small portion of the land to produce crops which have longer shelf life.

In this way, the farmer can save the produce and sell it at the right price.

The following are some of the examples of both Shorter Shelf Life Crops and Longer Shelf Life Crops.

Shorter Shelf Life Crops
  • Sugarcrops like Sugarcane
  • Vegetables like Tomato, Ladies Finger etc
  • Flowers
  • Fruits like Mango, Guava, Jamun etc
Longer Shelf Life Crops
  • Cereals like Paddy, Wheat
  • Millets like Maize, Millet, Ragi , Cumbu etc
  • Pulses
  • Oil Seeds like Castor, Groundnut, Gingelly etc
  • Fibre Crops like Cotton, Jute
  • Plantation Crops like Coconut, Cashewnut, Arecanut etc
  • Spice Crops like Ginger, Garlic, Tamarind etc
  • Vegetables like Elephant Yam, Tapioca etc
  • Fruit Crops like Jackfruit etc

2 comments:

  1. Thanks sir.. I am krish bharathi. Recently I left my job and started to doing agriculture. I hv taken land nearPunjai Pulliampatti on lease. I hv 400 coconuts in tthis farm. But 30 to 35% of trees yields are not up to the mark. How to increase the yield of a coconut tree?
    We have nearly 2000 banana plants (6 months). Some of the plants growth are very less compare to other plants.
    what I have to do to get a better growth like other plants ?
    Another 8 acres of land we are planning to do vegetable cultivation. This is bare land with lots of stones. Water sources are available. What kind of vegetables I can go with? .. looking forward for your kind advice. . Krish

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  2. Coconut - How is the watering done? How is the manure provided? If these 2 are taken care of, your yield will definitely go up. Provide the manure every 3 months.
    Banana - Very difficult to suggest anything without seeing the picture. Identify the problem first. Is water not reaching the plant or manure not provided well or disease or pest has stunted the growth? Only then can solution follow.
    Vegetables - Assess the market and address the needs of the local or target market. Just ask your family which vegetables they require on a daily basis. Something like Tomato, Onion, Chillies, Curry Leaves etc. These need to be made available continuously. Then go for Seasonal Vegetables. Here also, you can identify the premium vegetables which fetch good returns.

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