Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
to earn more profit per unit area. The ideal size of a walk in tunnel can
be of 4.0 m width and 30 m length (120 m
2
) and cost of fabrication may
range from Rs.160-180 per m
2
. The ideal size has been standardized for
optimum cross ventilation, to have a single piece coverage of above sized
structure with plastic commonly manufactured by firms of dimension 7 ×
30 m or 7 × 36 m and a length of nearly 25-30 m is very suitable for honey
bees to fly from one end to other for pollination (Singh et al., 2007).
Walk-in-tunnel technology is a simple and profitable technology for
off-season cultivation of cucurbits during the winter season in northern
plains of our country. Crops like summer squash can be grown as a com-
plete off-season crop, whereas other cucurbits like muskmelon, round
melon, bottle gourd, cucumber, bitter gourd, watermelon are mainly
grown during off-season. Basically these are temporary and really low
cost structures sincethe fixed investment made on plastic can last for 5-6
years and the investment made on GI pipes can last for more than 20 years
if proper care is taken.
7.4.1 INSECT PROOF NET HOUSES FOR SAFE VEGETABLE
CULTIVATION
The basic objective of Insect proof net house vegetable cultivation is to
minimize the use of pesticides in fresh vegetable cultivation for producing
safe vegetables and for production of quality seeds either of the seasons.
Since, vegetables are highly prone to large number of viruses and other in-
sect pests, which occur high during hot humid conditions of rainy and post
rainy season. To counter the problem it was suggested to raise the crop in
summers for getting disease and virus free seed crops. But due to the dy-
namic changes in the climatic conditions untimely rains and temperature
fluctuations are being experienced in spring and summer seasons. So, an
approach for taking safe commercial and seed production vegetable crop
has failed taking advantage of seasonal conditions in the present scenario.
The only solution is to reduce the affect of climatic conditions by using
protected structures. Pests and other vectors population can be checked
effectively by using insect proof net houses by creating a physical bar-
rier between crop and open environment (Singh et al., 2005). Usually the
farmers are growing their vegetable crops like tomato, chili, sweet pepper,
okra which are highly affected by viruses and other pests like borers and
