Team:ICT-Mumbai/ihp Alephata

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Team:ICT-Mumbai/IHP - 2018.igem.org

IHP-Ale Phata

Visit

The ihp visit to Ale-Phata located at the intersection of Mumbai-Ahmednagar and Pune-Nashik highway was intended to strengthen the cause of the project and interview various farmers in the region to find out their difficulties and the problems they face while making use of fertilizers and pesticides to keep their crops healthy and safe. A total of 5 farmers were interviewed and many more are provided with the questionnaire to collect important data about the use and frequency of fertilizers, pesticide and their effects on productivity and health. The farmers were of diverse types, one with no profit no loss method and other with 2 crore of turnover in a year. Various properties of such diverse farmers were noted. The main crops grown in the area were as follows:

• Pomegranate • Surgarcane • Sitaphal • Grapes • Banana • Tomato • Cucumber

Major Things to look out for:

Effect of fertilizers

Majority of farmers visited by the member utilize chemical fertilizer to provide nutrition to the crops. The amount of fertilizer used is humongous. On an average for one acre of land 100 kg or more of fertilizer is used. The types of fertilizers or the local names is as follow: 1840, 1026, potash, super phosphate, etc. Along with this, liquid fertilizers are also inserted through drip irrigation pipelines. 0050 is the variety of liquid fertilizer used. The solid fertilizers are generally added once every year and liquid fertilizers are added intermittently. The huge amount of fertilizers cost around more than 50 % of total cost incurred while farming. This huge amount is exclusive of the human labor required by the farmers to manually insert the fertilizers into the soil as shown in one of the videos. Thus, use of fertilizer have huge effect on the economical expenditure of farmers. We with the help of our amplification circuit aim to improve the phosphodiesterase production rate of microbes so that the phosphorus need of any particular plant can be satiated quickly without need of huge amount of chemical fertilizers.

Moreover, use of fertilizers have degraded the amount of produce that is generated each year. According to one of the farmers, his pomegranate production has reduced 25 % over the period of 10 years and he has to increase the amount of fertilizer to increase the yield leading to high input costs.

Banana plant under full bloom

Crop for animal fodder. Kind of weed can harm other useful plant by taking nutrition.

Sitaphal Farm

Sugarcane crop grown only with organic fertilizer.

Pomegranate Crops

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Caption Two

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Effect of weedicides

The fertilizers also lead to uncontrolled growth of weeds leading to lack of nutrition and water for plants to absorb and grow. Moreover, growth of weeds is faster and they require mainly phosphorus to grow instead of NPK. Hence, use of fertilizers in an uncontrolled manner as seen in rural India is hazardous for the future. This leads to the use of weedicides in a huge amount to curb the growth of the weeds, ehich inturn leads to the increase in capital costs and unrestrained use of hazardous chemicals on the fields.

One problem with this use is the meticulous application required along with it. If any weedicide is to be applied, it needs to be applied on the leaves of the weeds and below the main plant. If the solution touches the branches or the leaves of the plant, that branch slowly dries and becomes unproductive. The method of application is shown in the video below. This method of application has a huge risk and hence it is better if by some means the growth of weeds can be curbed.

The technique of recognizing the plant before starting the amplification circuit is useful here. If the region is full of weeds, nutrition would not be provided to those plants leading to dearth of nutrients. Thus, this specific production of phosphodiesterase, helps our cause in such situations.

Effect of pesticides

As stated in the satara IHP, in a similar manner, farmers generally use pesticides as curative measures and not preventive ones. The general pesticides used are from the company Nuon, Cannon, etc. The seller of such pesticides themselves give a schedule for the farmers to follow. Authenticity of such schedules cannot be tested. Major diseases that mar the growth of various plants are given below: • Banana: Karpa (the plant dries by itself), Kevda • Grapes: Karpa, Davni-Fungal • Pomegranate: Telya (leaves and other parts become oily and hampers the productivity), fungal, Maar roog (the plant dies slowly and slowly, no pesticide or insecticide is able to cure it. Moreover, the disease spreads to other plants in a circle) • Tomato: Insects affect the quality and productivity on a large scale. So, large amount of insecticides have to be applied leading to very high cost.

Generally, 1 ml of pesticide is used along with 1 L of water to ensure that concentration is low and overdose of chemicals doesn’t happen. Even if the amount is low, the cost of pesticide is fairly high and keeps on increasing with time. Also, certain diseases are beyond the capability of normal curative pesticides and farmers in the region do not have enough capital to make use of expensive ones.

This can be a point of difference. SAR inducing microbes are generally one-time cost since they reproduce. Moreover, they act as preventive measure and not curative one so, can help to eradicate the harmful diseases leading to increase in produce. Also, the cost factor is favourable since microbes are a one time cost unlike pesticides.