Total monthly rainfall received in Dimapur district during April month was 145.4mm which was 34% more than the normal (long term annual average). The number of rainy days was 12.
The first stage forecast of IMD, release that southwest monsoon seasonal (June to September) rainfall over the country as a whole is likely to be normal (96-104%).
Crop Advisories
In case of manual field operations of harvesting/ picking, accomplish the operation in 4-5feet spaced strips assigning one strip to one person. This will ensure adequate spacing between the engaged labour.
Stagger (plan in phase manner) the field operations whenever possible and avoid engaging more number of farmers on the same day in a given field.
All machines should be sanitized at the entry point and at regular intervals. All transport vehicles, gunny bags or other packaging material should also be sanitized.
All the farmers engaged should compulsorily use mask or a scarf that adequately cover the nose and mouth. Ensure hand washing with soap and water frequently. Clothes must be washed after use every day.
Jhum paddy: Ensure that the jhum paddy field is weed free at all times to get good quality seeds that are well filled and will perform vigorously from planting to maturity. All tools/implements or any other items used by one farmer should be sanitized and should not exchanged in any manner.
Maize: For good production of maize, do intercropping with soybean, urdbean, black gram etc or plant three rows of black gram between paired rows of maize proved beneficial over sole maize.
Banana: For sigatoka leaf spot management, maintain field sanitation, proper drainage as water logging will increase the humidity which favours infection. Remove the infected leaves regularly once in a month starting from 2nd month of planting. Destroy it by burning outside of field or dump it in manure pit and cover it with soil.
Lowland paddy: Short to medium duration HYV rice varieties like RCM-9, RCM-11, Shahsarang-1, Pusa Sugandh-5(Pusa 2511) should be taken up for timely harvesting of paddy.
To avoid the attack of pest and diseases, treat/dress the seed with mixture of fungicide and insecticide.
- Treat the seeds in carbendazim at 2g/l of water for 1 kg of seeds. Soak the seeds in water for 10 hours and drain excess water.
- Treat the seeds in Thiram/Bavistin or Mencozeb/bavistin + mencozeb fungicide @ 4g/litre for 1 kg of seed.
Livestock Advisories
Poultry
- Birds should be provided plenty of water with 1% salt, mineral mixture. Change in weather could lead to viral diseases. It is thus advice to clean the sanitary condition of poultry. Provide balanced feed, fresh & clean water
- Take preventive measures against coccidiosis. Disease outbreaks occur in humid climate and damp litter conditions. All ages of poultry are susceptible to infection. Avoid overcrowding, regularly clean feeders, waterers and keep deep litter dry by frequent turning and periodical change.
- Where possible, reduce stocking densities during hot weather both in the shed and during transport.
- Provide clean drinking water. With the onset of rainy season, chickens may encounter standing water. Drinking spilt water from the ground can lead to the infection of pathogens and parasites. Intestinal round worms are a common problem in chickens drinking from standing water. Worm infected chickens will generally appear healthy but seem to always be hungry and eating but remain skinny for their breed.
Piggery
- Piglets are susceptible for swine fever due to change in weather and feed. Taking advice of veterinary practitioner before providing medicine is compulsory for confirmation and dosages.
- Piglets should be dewormed regularly once in every three months as infection with worms can cause diarrhea, weight loss, stunting lung problems and death. Worms from pigs can cause disease in human. Pregnant sow should be dewormed before giving birth; otherwise she will pass on infection to her litter.
- Pigs at different stages of growth need different environments (temperatures).The houses must therefore be built in such a way that the pigs are protected against extreme temperatures and other bad weather condition
- Animals purchased for the farm should be from disease free herds. Newly purchased animals should be isolated from the other animals in the farm for a period of three to four weeks
Fisheries
- Keep a separate set of cloth, cap, mask and gumboot for farm work, wash in soap water/detergent and /or disinfect them before every reuse. Maintain social distancing during farm works and avoid crowd in fish farm.
- Prepare home made feed (mustard oil cake: rice bran =1:1 ratio) and use for fishes, if commercial feed not available.
- Feeding should be continued @ 5 kg/day/ha.
- Apply lime @ 27 kg/ha. This shall help in maintaining the desired pH level of the water. Lime should be mixed with water in a container and allowed to cool. Then it should be uniformly sprayed over the pond surface. Lime should be applied only on sunny day in the morning hours preferably during 9 – 10 am. Lime application should not be done on rainy or cloudy days.
- After 10 days of lime application, apply cow dung @ 200 kg /ha, Urea @ 25 kg/ha and SSP @ 20 kg/ha.
- If the temperature is too high, put some floating aquatic plant in one corner of the pond to provide shelter for the stocked fish. The covered area should not exceed one-fourth of the total water surface area.
- Prevent entry of surface runoff water into the pond.
Agro Met Field Unit
ICAR, Jharnapani. Medziphema
