Tips for raising disease free nursery in vegetable crops

摘要

For successful vegetable production it is necessary to use disease free seeds and nursery. Most of the vegetables like carrot, radish, turnip, okra, peas, garlic and potato etc are sown directly in the field. But for some vegetables e.g. tomato, brinjal chilli, sweet pepper, cabbage, cauliflower, onion first the nursery is raised and then the seedlings are transplanted in the main field. It is essential to have disease free nursery because it is the main source of insect-pests and diseases in the field. Damping-off, a common disease occurring in nursery of vegetables, appears usually in poorly managed nursery beds sown with pathogen-infected seeds and by adopting wrong cultural practices. Sometimes due to damping-off, about 20-70% of seedling mortality occurs in the nursery. Hence, it is necessary to raise disease free nursery because it is easy and economical to manage diseases and insect-pests in the small area of nursery.