Black Pepper Cultivation – Nursery Operations from March to April

Nursery

• Prepare the potting mixture and put for solarization for 30 to 45ays
• Immediately after solarization mix the solarized potting mixture with biocontrol agents viz. Trichoderma harzianum or T. viride (1 g per kg of potting mixture),Pseudomonas fluorescens (20 g dissolve in 1 liter water and 50 ml of this solution in 1kg of potting mixture),VAM (100 cc per kg of potting mixture)and Pochonia chlamydosporia (1 – 2 g / kg of nursery mixture) to prevent soil contamination. (The biocontrol agents can also be mixed with nursery mixture, even if it is not solarized).
• Fill the polybags of size 15X10 cm (with enough perforations) with treated nursery mixture.
• Separate the runner shoots from the mother plant. Avoid using, too tender or too woody shoots.
• Cut the selected runner shoots into 2 to 3 noded cuttings.Leaves, if any are clipped off leaving a small portion of petiole on the stem.
• Treat the cuttings with cut ends dipped in Pseudomonas formulation (250g in 750 ml water) for 20 minutes.
• Plant treated cuttings @3 to 5 per bag and incubate in mist chambers for 20 days. When cuttings start sprouting, they are taken out or removed from the mist chamber. Remove unsprouted and infected cuttings, if any from the nursery.
• Water the plants at the required frequency so as to maintain low temperature and high humid conditions.
• Spray and drench the plants at fortnightly interval with 2% Pseudomonas fluorescens (Strain P1)
• Drench the infested bags with Chlorpyriphos 0.075%, if mealy bugs damage is noticed.
• Spray with dimethoate (0.05%), if leaf gall thrips or scale insects incidence is noticed.
• Spray with potassium phosphonate 0.3% or metalaxyl-mancozeb 0.125% (1.25 g/litre) at fortnightly interval, if Phytophthora disease incidence is noticed.
• Alternatively spray the foliage with Bordeaux mixture 1% and drench with copper oxychloride0.2%.
• Remove bags with infected cuttings to prevent spread of disease