Increased Productivity of Banana Trough foliar Application of Banana Special

Banana is second most important fruit crop of the district, next only to mango, and is grown mainly under irrigation. The Banana Grand-9 is demonstrated at KVK, Hirehalli farm in 0.5 ha. The planting is done in the month of July. The availability of micronutrients is low in Tumakuru area due to coarse textured soil, low organic matter and high pH of soil. These result in predominant micronutrient disorders. To overcome these problems and to get higher productivity, Banana Special (an IIHR technology) was recommended by KVK, Hirehalli at the rate of 5 sprays @ 5 g/lit at 30 days interval starting from 5th month from the planting.

Sri.Jayaram is small farmer from Sannappanpalaya,Hirehalli Post,Tumakuru, growing banana in his 0.5 ha area. On observing the results in KVK farm he was motivated to apply the same technology in his field as well. The demonstration was conducted at his field in 0.5 ha. The results have clearly indicated that by adoption of the Banana Special foliar application, the yield of the crop could be increased to an extent of 17.46 % on an average. The farmer got benefitted with additional yield of 5.5 t/ha compared to local and an additional income of Rs. 27500.

Table 1. Increase in yield using banana special

The demonstration of this technology have been widely publicised through different mass media like news paper, radio and TV and widely used in the farmers training programme of the KVK. Dissemination efforts made by this KVK with the proven results, the farmers of the district under irrigated agro-ecosystem are adopting this technology with horizontal spread to a greater extent area (1597 ha) in Tumakuru.