The mKrishi (mobile based agro advisory system) is getting good response from the farmers in Punjab. In the cotton belt, in districts of Bathinda, Mansa, Muktsar, Ferozepur, the major queries are raised about insect pest management and farmers are benefited by the advice given to them by the experts. The farmers were asking about spraying of insecticides for the control of whitefly. But the populations of these insects were below threshold (ETL) level, so the expert advice was given for avoiding unnecessary application of insecticides.

Earlier, the farmers have been applying heavier doses of fertilisers particularly urea (N) at the time of flower initiation to reduce the flower drop in cotton. As per expert advice, they checked application of urea and adopted spray of potassium nitrate instead of urea. They were also provided advice about how to spray round up for the control of weeds. Such advice proved very helpful for farmers to reduce cost of cultivation for cotton crop. The maximum numbers of queries in cotton were regarding control of sucking pests viz., whitefly, jassids and aphids, mealy bug, and the spray of potassium nitrate. The technology has been helpful in solving new problems like appearance of hairy caterpillar which otherwise is generally not noticed damaging cotton. The farmer raised the query by sending pictures of the pest along with the query and accordingly he was advised by the experts to manage the pest by using soft insecticide. 

Photo: Red Hairy caterpillar damage in cotton

Along with the cotton crop in the Malwa belt of Punjab, mKrishi is also offering advisory services for the basmati crop in Majha region of the Punjab in Amritsar and Tarn Taran districts. In the districts commonly representing the basmati belt, major queries were raised by farmers on control of foot rot in basmati, irrigation management and weed management. Farmers were advised to adopt spraying of fungicides Tilt for the foot rot and also for producing disease-free seed for the next crop season. In basmati also the timely advice helped in reducing the number of sprays and saved their money.

In all districts, unregistered farmers have also shown keen interest in getting the technology through demonstrations by registered farmers. The next crops for which the services would be offered include wheat and potato. By next week the information would be loaded into handsets and farmers would be able to use the service for these rabi cops. In both crops disease incidence poses a great threat and thus timely information on adoption of protective measures would be of valuable use to the farmers.

Since the technology is new and one of its kind, some operational difficulties were also faced, which included weaker network coverage, hand sets related issues, and varying call / data charges. A dialogue has been initiated by TCS with TTSL for working on some economic unlimited usage plan for users. Meanwhile the TCS (owner of the patented technology) is working on another version called mKrishi Lite which is compatible with all other handsets and works both on CDMA and GSM networks.