Detail:

Patel and some other farmers of his village, were among those who began cultivating okra or Lady's finger or bhindainstead of cotton. Lady's finger is an all season crop but farmers prefer to grow it in the pre-monsoon (May) and pre-winter (September) periods. Most lady's finger growing farmers sow the crop more or less at the same time which leads to a market glut and causes the price to fall sharply. Lady's finger , unlike cotton, cannot be stored to be sold later when better prices can be fetched.The problem also bothered Patel and he was constantly on the lookout for a way to regulate the harvest of lady's finger. One day when his bullocks were tied to posts on the bunds of the lady's finger field, they chewed away some lady's finger plants leaving behind the stubble-like stems about one foot tall. Much to his surprise he found that soon each stubble sprouted six to seven lateral branches. After a few days these branches bore fruits and that too far more produsely than the branches of normal plants.Taking cue from this accidental finding, Patel began to prune his lady's finger plants when market prices fell. The following year, in August 1988, he cut off all plants with a sickel leaving the stems about a foot long. Thereafter he used fertilizer, and irrigated the crop and followed all the routine procedures like inter-culturing etc. The ratoon crop responded rapidly and new branches emerged within a week. Exactly one month later Patel got first picking of fruits from the ratoon crop. At that time, the supply of lady's finger in the market had fallen and hence his produce fetched him a good price.He got 30 pickings from the ratoon crop at an interval of two or three days, the ratoon contributed to the total production of 12,000 kg from one bigha or 0.24 ha. According to Patel, this production was much higher than the sum production of two crops grown separtely in the monsoon and winter. Besides this, the cost of sowing of seeds and tilling operation of next crop was saved. The ratoon crop alone yielded 6,500 kg which was higher than the previous regular crop of 5,500 kg. Patel is a young farmer of an irrigated region. His eight year old experiment has been a great success and he has been using this practice ever since. A large number of farmerss of the surrounding villages have emulated Patel's technique successfully.Professors T N Barevadia and S K Dave, scientists from Gujarat Agricultural University, have appreciated Patel's efforts. However, they cautioned that ratoon crop is highly sensitive to insect pests and diseases. Prof K D Solanki drew attention to the fact that only some varieties of lady's finger have the characteristics of ratooning.

Knowledge Provider / Innovator: Shashikantbhai Manibhai Patel
Agro-Ecological Zone: Central Highlands (Malwa), Gujarat Plain 5.2 (15 Dm4)Central Kathiawar peninsula, hot dry
Address: Kasampur
District: Vadodara
State: Gujarat
PIN Code 391244

Crop: Lady’s finger (okra)
Crop Family: Malvaceae
Crop Scientific Name: (Ablemoschus esculentus)
Crop Vernacular Name: Bhindi
Ingredients: Approximately 800 to 1000 kilogrammes empty castor pod shells, leaves of mango, leaves ofcastor, animal dung and urine, gobar gas (bio-gas) plant slurry, tas-moram (a kind of gravelly soil), other farm waste.

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