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The Castor Plant – Tips and Cautions

The castor plant grows rapidly. It achieves height approximately more than 6 feet. Its maximum height is 12 meter. Growing castor plant is possible by seeds. Soak castor seeds in a glass of water for 24 hours before planting. Use filtered or purified water instead of tap water.

Requirements for Castor Plant:

Soil

The soil must be well drained because it can not tolerate water logging. The soil should be rich in organic substance. Castor plant is adaptable to many different types of soil. Castor beans need warm soil to crop up.

Sun

Because of its height, Castor needs to be sheltered from the winds. Castor bean plants need a full sun location and lots of heat to grow their best.

Fertilizer

For castor plant, use the all-purpose fertilizer once in a month. when the buds begin to emerge, spread a layer of an inch of aged compost around the base of the plant.

Watering

The soil which is always slightly moist, it should be good for castor plant.

Pruning and Harvesting

For castor plant, pruning is not required. Select the bean pods as they begin to dry on the plant. Either remove the castor plants from the garden with pods or leave them if growing as perennial.

Tips:

If there is the case of ingestion, avoid the castor plant.
Remove the weeds at first phase of planting.
Keep in mind that castor plant requires more water at starting phase.
Castor plant needs regular watering and pesticide sprinkling.
When there is the medium sized crop, use the plow to remove weeds.
During Harvesting, take only those castors, which are ripe completely.

Cautions:

Castor plants may be allergic to some people, but it’s not poison for anybody.
Keep Pets away from eating castor leaves or seeds.
Also keep children away from castor plants and seeds.

How to protect from Pink Bollworm?

It’s not required to afraid of Pink bollworm. Pink bollworm eats only plants hood, flower and small bolls. As per atmosphere convenience, Pink bollworm can live 10 days to 13 month, which is very long lifetime compare to other insects.

When Rain is started and the atmosphere becomes slight cool, then it’s the time for pink bollworm to attack. After raining, Pink bollworm will enter to cocoon and grow up from it. It puts approximately 300 to 400 eggs in cotton. This bollworm eats only flower and Cotton seeds of cotton bolls. It doesn’t eat leaves or branches. It has succeeded to digest B.T. cotton.

pink bollworm

Here are few suggestions to protect from pink bollworm:

Farmers have to plant those types of crop, which take short time to be prepared. Because Pink bollworm does not exist during August and September. That time, All the good quality and lumping bolls are being prepared. In addition, Choose the cotton quality, of which plant is open and standing. So whenever there is a requirement to sprinkle, then due to open plants it covers all the flowers, hatches and small bolls.
The first attack of pink bollworm is after 10 to 15 days of rain. If planting of cotton is done at the time of rain or in June, then at that time there is no any flower in cotton. So cotton will be protected from pink bollworm.
Non-Bt cotton should be planted around the farm. So Pink bollworm eat Non-Bt cotton. So its generation will be ineffective to Bt cotton. It will be beneficial in future of cotton. So you will get long term benefits. (If you have not Non-B.T. cotton then you can also plant Pigeon pea or castor).
Use the pheromone trap. Using this trap Male fungus are trapped so that fertility will be reduced. Because of that, spreading of pink bollworm will be reduced.
The second attack of pink bollworm is in Bhadra month(i.e. August- September). In this month, the new generation of pink bollworm is ready, which puts eggs only on small bolls. At this time, because of the small size of bolls, pink bollworm can damage crops easily. Like this small bolls will be protected and become big cotton bolls, in which pink bollworm can not enter.

Like this you can protect your crops from pink bollworm.

Pink bollworm – A pest in cotton farming & Its Resistance

The pink bollworm is an insect which is a pest of cotton farming. The pink bollworm is varies in size. The rare size of pink bollworm is 3/8 inch in length. Pink bollworm is grey in color with oval shaped wings. The wings are strongly fringed at the edges. The pink ball warm’s wings are pointed at the tip. When at rest, the moth’s wings are folded close to the body. Under magnification, palpi can be seen emerging from the lower front part of the head. In contrast to most other moths, the palpi of pink bollworm are relatively thick, curved upwards and have light and dark colored bands. Also, the pink bollworm moths have a few stout hairs which project forward from the base of the antenna. Pink bollworm moths will typically live 4 to 8 days.

Pink bollworm

Pink ballworm eggs seen rarely and they are samll in size and yellow in colour. Eggs are usually laid singly inside the bracts of squares and under the calyx of bolls. Eggs normally hatch in 4 to 5 days.

Pink bollworm moth

Early instar pink bollworm larva

The pink ballworm is white in colour but it turns pink as their age. At hatching, the larvae have a dark head, but as they mature, the head becomes yellowish-brown in color. The most effective means of managing pink bollworm in season is to plant cotton containing genes from the bacteria. These genes produce proteins that are toxic to most leaf and fruit feeding caterpillars after ingestion.

The pink bollworm is native to Asia, but it found in most of the world’s cotton-growing regions. It reached the cotton belt in the southern United States by the 1920s. It is a major pest in the cotton fields of the southern California deserts. The female moth lays eggs in a cotton boll, and when the larvae emerge from the eggs, they inflict damage through feeding.