G. K. ZENDE V. G. DESAI
S. N. JOSHI and J. H. KULKARNI
S. K. RUIKAR JAGADISH PATWARDHAN
The use of vermicompost in improving the soil conditions
and increasing the crop yield and crop quality is
now fairly accepted as a general practice in Maharashtra,
Karnataka and Gujrath States.
Adoption of vermiculture technology not only helps
in improving the soil fertility on a sustainable
basis, but it also helps in minimizing the use of
chemical fertilizers to the extent of 25 to 50 percent
and increase the crop yield by 15 to 20 percent
due to increased supply of all essential elements.
The trial conducted by INORA on a plant cane crop
(CV, CoC-671) in 1996 at Kolhapur on a cultivators
field revealed that the application of vermicompost
at 5 to 10 tonnes per hectare, increased the juice
quality and the magnitude of increase was high.
(Zende et. al. 1998 a; Zende et. al. 1998 b). One
of the practical way to deal with the problem of
Land Management for protection of soil and crop
from environment pollution is to adopt organic farming
and make full use of vermiculture technology. The
highlights of work done by INORA was presented by
Zende
et al. 1988. Based on the limited data presented
(Zende 1998 and 1999) it was noted adoption of vermiculture
technology in Sugarcane Farming not only helps in
reducing the dose of chemical fertilizers at least
to the extent of 50 percent without sacrificing
the cane yield, but it also helps in enhancing the
quality of Juice considerably leading to very high
recovery of Sugar.
