Gujarat farmers use ‘Cotton Doctor’ mobile app to save crops, boost yields, says Nitin Jugran Bahuguna. Read on to know more!
Weather uncertainties due to climate change and increased pest attacks on their crops in recent years have caused widespread destruction of plants and huge financial losses for cotton farmers in Gujarat. Parth Patel, 21, of Dhavat village in Vadodara district is just one of thousands of cotton growers struggling with the vexing issue of pink bollworm (PBW) infestation on his saplings.
When he noticed that the leaves of his younger crops were getting yellow and that their quality had also declined, he immediately uploaded a photo of one of the plants on his phone to a special mobile app and got a response from a scientist after two days. ‘I was advised to use a particular chemical containing calcium to improve plant immunity as they were not growing due to calcium deficiency,’ he recalls.
When the problem of pest attacks occurred again last year, farmer Chandrakant Patel, 42, of Vemur village, located about 50 km away from Vadodara, immediately swung into action, taking pictures of the affected saplings and uploading them on his phone to the special app. ‘Within 24 hours, I got a solution to my problem via the app and I was able to take timely action of applying a recommended pesticide on the crops to save them,’ he discloses.
This story is from the November 2020 edition of TerraGreen.
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This story is from the November 2020 edition of TerraGreen.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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