This season, Ganesh diversified with our help to grow commercial bitter gourd and sponge gourd crops on half an acre of his land. East-West Seed’s Knowledge Transfer team has been on hand to provide full technical support to Ganesh. He learned how to place his crops on raised beds, as well as how to get the best from plastic mulch, drip irrigation techniques, and trellis nets on his farm. He began the practice of carefully training and pruning axillary growth. The concept of clean cultivation, taught by our knowledge transfer team, was observed closely. Ganesh also used integrated pest management practices; pheromone trap and sticky papers, all innovative skills he had not been familiar with before.

The results were quickly demonstrated in the healthy state of the crops. Ganesh was surprised to  witness less disease attacks blighting his crops while using less pesticides than he normally would. Mostly, he is proud that these new techniques have resulted in healthy crops that will boost his income. Although just starting out, he hopes to learn even more about improved farming techniques and to further increase his quality of life.