Crop Production Technology of Cash, Fibre and Horticultural Crops
Crop Production Technology of Cash, Fibre and Horticultural Crops - This domain tests sugarcane, cotton, jute, potato, tomato and mango production, including planting material and propagation.
Core rules
- Sugarcane: planted with 3-bud setts, row spacing 75–90 cm, seed rate about 3–4 t/ha; earthing up and trash mulching are important.
- Cotton: seed rate 15–20 kg/ha, wider spacing, topping and nutrient management; bollworm is a key pest.
- Jute: fibre crop, broadcast or line sown; retting is essential for fibre quality.
- Potato: seed tubers, 2–2.5 t/ha, ridges and furrows; dehaulming before harvest.
- Tomato: nursery raising, transplanting, staking and pruning; mango: grafts, 10 m × 10 m spacing, fruit drop management.
Worked example
Sugarcane setts are planted at 75 cm × 30 cm. Area per sett = 0.75 × 0.30 = 0.225 m2. Setts per hectare = 10,000 ÷ 0.225 = 44,444. Reasoning: this is a plant-population calculation; if each sett has three buds, bud number is three times the sett number, but only one shoot is usually retained.
Traps
- Potato seed rate is in tonnes of tubers, not kilograms of true seed.
- Cotton is a fibre crop, not an oilseed, even though cottonseed oil is a by-product.
- Sugarcane is propagated vegetatively; do not describe it as grown from seed in commercial fields.
- Mango grafts are planted, not seedlings, for true-to-type orchards.
- Jute retting affects fibre quality; poor retting lowers grade.