I am DT Lingaraju, a farmer from Dasenahalli village in Chitradurga district, Karnataka. We are traditional agriculturists for generations. Our main traditional crop was coconut. In the year 2010 I started pomegranate cultivation in 8 acres of land. At that time as every farmer in our surrounding I started practicing chemical methods to control various pest and diseases affecting pomegranate plants. We were naïve enough to seek help from so called “pomegranate doctors” i.e. consultants who further pushed into practicing unstainable package of practice which only benefitted the consultants and pesticide dealers. In about 4 years we were left high and dry in the middle of a bacterial blight outbreak which spared no farmer in our area. The consultants were long gone, and we were left with diseased plants and huge debt on our shoulders. During this time most of the pomegranate farmers were thinking of removing the pomegranate plants and many of them did so. The thoughts of removing the pomegranate plants in my fields also crossed my minds on several occasions. At this juncture we got to know about Arka Microbial Consortium (AMC) developed by Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR) through a progressive farmer Chardregowda from Chikkamagaluru district. His experience of the product was very positive and he recommended us to use AMC in our pomegranate orchard. Without further ado I assembled a group of farmers from our taluk and visited IIHR. We met Dr Ganeshmurthy from Department of Soil Science & Agriculture Chemistry who explained us the technology behind AMC and how regular use of AMC in our crops resulted in reducing the bacterial blight disease and improved the systemic resistance in our plants. I purchased 25 L of AMC from IIHR and started using it in our pomegranate orchards. But soon we were having a problem of getting AMC to our village on a regular basis. At this time through IIHR we got introduced to Mr Suhas Mohan, proprietor of Bloom Biotech who assured us of timely delivery and high quality of AMC to our destination. It has been 4-5 years of me using AMC for soil application as well as foliar spray in our pomegranate orchards and we have achieved a great deal of success in controlling the bacterial blight. Our soil fertility had
improved dramatically resulting in improved crop quality has fetched us better prices. With the success of using AMC in pomegranate I have started using AMC in custard apple, lemon, & coconut plants. Along with AMC we are also using ACTINO, Trichoderma viride biofertilizers and Arka Vegetable special micronutrient in our plantations.
As a small farmer I am very indebted to the scientists at IIHR who have developed AMC and Bloom Biotech for providing us with high quality products. Sincerely, DT Lingaraju
DT Lingaraju from Dasenahalli Village, Hosadurga Taluk, Chitradurga District : Pomegranate, Custard Apple, Coconut : 9448514620 Thank you for your Testimony and success story.
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