GREENGRAM(Phaseolus aureus/ P.radiatus/ Vigna aureus )
INTRODUCTION
Green gram are annual legume crops grown for their seed. It is most nutritive and tasteful pulse. The green grams could be green, black or yellow in colour. Often called green gram or golden .which belongs to grain group. It is small herbaceous plant which belongs to the family leguminaceae. Annual plant grown to height of 30-120cm with slightly tendency of twinning. Central stem are more less erect while side branches are semi erect. Both leaves and stems are covered with short hairs. The seed are small and usually green, but yellow brown or purple brown seeds are presents. The crop is full fertile and self pollinated.
ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF GREEN GRAM
Green grams are native crops of India, it is cultivated in several countries of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. In East Africa it is most commonly grown in Kenya . Green grams grow best at an altitude of 0-1600 m above sea level and under warm climatic conditions (28 to 30°C). They are well adapted in high and medium loam and sandy loam soils, but also do reasonably well on not too exhausted sandy soils. Green grams are not tolerant to wet, poorly drained soils. They are drought tolerant and will give reasonable yields with as little as 650 mm of yearly rainfall. Heavy rainfall results in increased vegetative growth with reduced pod setting and development.
In Tanzania grown in Tanga, Lindi, Mtwara, Morogoro, Coastal regions and some parts of Arusha, Manyara, Kilimanjaro and Dodoma.
VARIETIES
The local green gram variety
Nuru and imara.
– Has small seeds.
– Plants mature at different times.
– Matures late.(50 days)
– Has a lot of stony seeds, which makes green gram meal difficult to eat.
– Resistance to mosaic diseases.
The improved variety
K26, kvr22,
– Has large seeds.
– Gives high yields and plants ripen at the same time.
– Matures early.
– Does well in dry areas.
ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF GREENGRAM
1.Green gram is consumed as food in several ways as whole grain or dal.
2. The flour of gram is used in the preparation of biscuits, namkin, sweets and for other purpose.
3. The germination grains are consumed as nutritious food for good health; it is rich in protein containing about 25% protein.
4. The straw and husk and the green plants are used as cattle feed.
5. This is an ideal and important crop for rotation with cereals and also used for green manuring purposes for the improvement of soil fertility.
6. Source of income through exportation.
AGRONOMIC PRACTISES
Land preparation and planting
Prepare land early enough so that planting can start when the rains begin. Green gram can be planted alone or intercropped with other crops like maize. When planted alone, sow it 45cm between rows and 15cm between plants. 2.5 hector of land will require 4 to 8 kg of seed for planting.
Weeding
The first weeding should be done 3 weeks after the seeds have emerged followed by the second weeding 45 days later, if necessary keep the crop free from harmful weeds.
Fertilizers
10kg nitrogen (50kg Ammonium sulphate or 22.2kg Urea) and 40 kg Phosphorus (250kg single supper phosphate) per hectare should be applied for getting higher yield.
Irrigation
Irrigation is needed according to the season of sowing. Rainy season crops needs no irrigation but summer season crops needs 4 to 5 irrigation according to the soil moisture. The summer crop is sown after giving pre-soaking irrigation and thereafter irrigation is given at the interval of 15-20 days according to the need of the crop.
PEST AND DISEASES OF GREENGRAMS
PESTS
Pod borer (Helicoverpa obsoleta)
It damaging crops mainly during the pod formation. The caterpillar feeds on the foliage and then bores the green pods and feed on ripen grains.
CONTROL
Deep ploughing immediately after harvest helps to expose the pupae to hot sun and they get killed.
Spraying the crop with Malathion or Endosulfan at the fruiting stage.
Galerucid bettle (Madurasia obscurella)
It can stipple the leaves in young plant and cause the retardant of the plant, then the grubs remain in the soil near the plant and feed on root hair and nodules.
CONTROL
Application of Disulfoton or Phorate at the time of sowing.
Spraying the crop with Endosulphan (Thiodan 35 EC) or dusting the crop with BHC.
Aphids (Aphis cardui)
They suck the sap from the growing parts of the plants and also acts as the vector of several viruses of legumes.
CONTROL
It can be controlled by the spraying the crop with Methyldemidon or Dimethoate or Phosphomidon when the infection is observed.
DISEASES
ANTHRACNOSE (Glomerella lindemunthianum)
Attack the tender parts of the plants at all stages of its growth. Its damage is mostly in leaves and pods.
SYMPTOMS
Circular black-sunken spots with dark centres are bright red or orange margin appears on leaves and pods.
The infected parts wither of
The infected stem crack and rot
Seedling get blighted soon after seed germination.
CONTROL
Crop sanitation and seed treatment. The seed are treated with Thiran or Captan before sowing.
Crop rotation.
BACTERIAL BLIGHT. (Xanthomonas phaseoli indicus)
SYMPTOMS
Yellowish white crusts of exudates appear on pods.
Long reddish streak on stem and plant looks wilted.
Leaves turn yellow and fall off prematurely.
CONTROL
Use of disease free seeds
Practicing crop rotation
Growing of resistant variety.
RUST (Uromyces appendiculatus)
This is the very common disease and is exhibited by circular reddish brown pustules on underside of the leaves.
SYMPTOMS
Leaves they shrink and fall off.
CONTROL
Dusting the plant with sulphur or spraying with Ziben (Dithane Z-78) or Mancozeb (Dithane M-45)
DRY ROOT ROT
SYMPYOMS
Yellowish colour of the leaves
The plant wilt within a week.
Dark sclerotial bodies be seen on the affected roots and basal stems.
CONTROL
Crop rotation
Field sanitation ( cutting down the diseased plants and burning them)
Drenching the soil fungicides to reduce innoculum
POWDERY MILDEW (Drysiphe polygon)
SYMPTOMS
White powdery patches appear on leaves
Foliage become yellow and drop of.
Affected parts get shriveled and distored.
CONTROL
Spraying the crop with powdered sulphur or weltable sulphur such as Sulfex and Karathane.
YELLOW MOSAIC
It is virus diseases. It is transmitted by the vector white fly.
SYMPYTOMS
Mild scattered yellow specks appear on young leaves
Mature later of the diseased plant and bear lesser number of flowers and pods.
Pods are reduced and have small seeds
CONTROL
Spraying the crop with Methyldemidon plus Melathion to control the vectors.
HARVESTING
Harvest green gram when most of the pods have turned black. You can pick and dry individual pods or uproot the whole plant and dry it for about 2 days, then thresh and clean it. Insect pests that attack green grams are bean aphids, bean fly and bruchid weevils.
HARVESTING CARE:
During harvesting, proper care should be taken to minimize quantitative and qualitative losses.
Following care should be taken during harvesting:
Harvesting should be done at proper maturity to ensure optimum grain quality and consumer acceptance.
Harvesting before the maturity of crop, usually result in lower yields, higher proportion of immature seeds, poor grain quality and more chances of infestation during storage.
Delay in harvesting of Green gram, results in shattering of pods and other losses caused by birds, rats, insects etc.
The best time to harvest the crop, when large i.e. 80 percent of the pods are fully matured.
Avoid harvesting during adverse weather condition i.e. rains and overcast weather.
Use right kind of harvest equipment (sickle).
Avoid pest infestation prior to harvesting.
The harvested bundles should be kept in one direction in order to ascertain efficient threshing.
Keep the harvested bundles for drying in the field after cutting on the threshing floor, if weather permits.
The harvested produce should be stacked in a dry, clean place in cubical way to facilitate circulation of the air around.
Rogue out the admixtures prior to harvesting.
Keep the harvested Green gram separately from one variety to another to get true to type variety (grains)
YIELDS
Average yields range from 1 to 2 bags (90 -180 kg) per acre. If you follow the above steps you can get up to 4 bags (360 kg) per acre. The straw is good livestock feed. You can get a return of 5 times your investment if you follow the steps in this leaflet.
STORAGE
You must dry green grams well before storing because bruchid weevils attack the stored grain. It is best to store the grain in covered tins, drums, pots or sealed containers. If you store it in bags, add the ash of neem leaves or buy super actellic and add 2 matchboxes full (50 g) to one 90 kg bag of green grams for protection against the bruchid. Mix the actellic or ash well with green grams before storage. Storage humid condition is 13%
POST-HARVEST LOSSES
There is a sizeable quantitative and qualitative loss of pulses during different post-harvest operations like threshing, winnowing, transportation, processing and storage. Hence, it is appropriate to give due emphasis to reduce qualitative as well as quantitative losses of pulses during post-harvest operation. The post-harvest losses of Green gram can be minimized in the process of threshing, winnowing, storage, processing, handling and transportation.
(i) Threshing and Winnowing:
It has been reported that during threshing about 0.63 percent losses and 0.61 percent losses in winnowing are occurred. In order to reduce the losses, threshing and winnowing operations are required to be completed within a short period through improved equipments on the pucca platform
.
(ii) Transport Losses:
During transportation, it has been observed that 0.67 percent losses are occurred in transporting the produce from the field to threshing floor. Losses to the tune of 0.19 percent for transporting the produce from threshing floor to storage. Efficient and quick transportation supported by good packaging material is necessary to reduce the losses.
(iii) Processing:
Due to use of old and outdated methods in processing, the loss at this stage has been reported to be upto 1 percent. To reduce the milling losses and to increase the output, improved dal milling method should be adopted.
Storage:
Due to improper and inefficient methods of storage, the loss about 7.5 percent is estimated during storage. Quantitative losses mainly results from spoilage, driage or portion of produce, infestation by insects, rodents or birds. Improved scientific storage facilities should be adopted to reduce the losses considerably.
Following preventive measures should be adopted to avoid post harvest losses.
Harvest at proper stage of maturity to reduce losses.
Use proper method of harvesting.
Adopt modern mechanical methods, to avoid the losses in threshing and
Winnowing.
Use improved technique of processing.
Adopt cleaning and grading for remunerative prices inter-alia to avoid financial loss.
Use good packaging materials for storage and in transport i.e. B-Twill Jute
bags or HDPE bags.
Adopt proper technique in storage.
Apply pest control measures during storage.
Proper handling i.e. (loading and unloading) of Green gram with good
transportation facilities at farm and market level reduces losses.
Avoid use of hooks.
GRADING:
Grading means the sorting of the homogenous lots of the produce according to the fixed grade standard. Produce is graded in accordance with various quality factors.
Benefits of grading:
i) The grading is beneficial to the farmers, traders as well as to the consumers.
ii) Grading of the produce before sale enables farmers to get better price for their produce
iii) Grading helps the consumers to get standard quality produce at fair price.
iv) It facilitates the consumer to compare the prices of different qualities of produce in the market.
v) It assures the quality of the produce and also reduces the cost of the marketing and transportation. In the market, the sale is generally done on the basis of visual inspection of available sample and with local commercial name.
PACKAGING
Packaging is an important function for every produce and so is in the marketing of Green gram. It is a practice to protect the produce from any damage during storage, transportation and other marketing aspects. It is required at every stage of marketing from the producer to the consumer. In recent years, packaging plays an important role in marketing of produce. The good packaging of Green gram not only facilitates convenience in transportation and storage but also attracts consumer to pay more. The packaging reduces the marketing cost and protects the quality
METHOD OF PACKING
Pulses shall be packed in gunny bags/jute bags, poly woven bags, poly pouches, cloth bags or other suitable packages which shall be clean, sound, and free from insect, fungal infestation and the packing material shall be as permitted under the Prevention of food adulteration rules, 1955.
Pulses shall be packed in containers, which safeguard the hygienic nutritional and organoleptic qualities of the products.
The containers, including packaging material, shall be made of substances, which are safe and suitable for their intended use. They should not impart any toxic substance or undesirable odour or flavour to the product.
The net weight of the Pulses in a package shall be as per the provision prescribed under the packaged commodities rules, 1977.
Each package shall contain Pulses of the same type and of the same grade designation.
Each package shall be securely closed and sealed and marked
MARKETING PRACTICES
Assembling is an important marketing function. Assembling includes the operation of collecting Green gram produce from different villages to at a central place i.e. primary market and secondary market for its further movement to the dal millers or, the consumers.
REFERENCES
-Advances in Pulse Production Technology, Jeswani, L.M. and Baldev, B., Indian Council of Agricultural Research Publication (1988)
-Post Harvest Technology of Cereals, Pulses and Oil seeds, ,
A.(1988).
-Websites
-www.agricoop.nic.in
-www.fao.org (Visited on 4th may 2012 at 1300 hours)
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