K. Chellamuthu 是泰米尔纳德邦 Erode Kodumudi 村的一名农场工人，他开发了一种草本喷雾剂来控制椰子树中的叶螨，据称 印度教. Chellamuthu details the preparation as: “About one kg of custard apple leaves, turmeric rhizome, peenari changu (无脊椎动物), 芦荟, Nochi (蔓荆子), 苦楝仁 (印苦楝子) 和 calotropis (大胡瓜) each should be ground into a fine paste by adding sufficient water and about five litres of essence extracted from it. The essence must be diluted in 15 litres of water (to make it 20 litres) and sprayed on to the crown of the tree at the rate of 2 litres per tree after harvesting the nuts.” Chellamuthu recommends repeating the procedure once every two months at the start, and later, twice a year. “Nearly 2,000 coconut trees treated with my herbal formula are healthy and about 300 farmers are using it,” he says.
The farmer also advocates use of asafoetida, or giant fennel, for increasing crop yield. “I accidentally discovered that asafoetida acts as a pest repellent and aids plant growth,” Chellamuthu says, adding that he knows that asafoetida benefits plant health, but does not know why. For an acre he places one kg of asafoetida inside a sack and places it in the irrigation channel. “The water along with the dissolved asafoetida repels pests and aids crop growth,” he says.
He discovered this technique by accident: “I once jokingly suggested to my neighbour to use the surplus half-a-kilogram asafoetida he had on his ring gourd plants affected by pests. I wanted to tease him and did not know the consequences,” he says. Surprising both Chellamuthu and his neighbor, the plants not only survived the pest attack but also grew well to yield bigger, healthier gourds than the normal ones. A farmer from a neighbouring village heard about their success and, after using it on his 2.5 acres of jasmine plants, had a good yield.
“I started experimenting asafoetida’s effect on paddy, sesame seeds, ground nut, tomato, brinjal and other crops and found that the yield increased and the plants were healthy,” says Chellamuthu. After other farmers in the district followed Chellamuthu’s practice, the Centre for Plant Protection Studies at the 泰米尔纳德邦农业大学, Coimbatore, 对生物喷雾对水稻和茄子作物的影响进行了科学研究，并认可了它的使用。
如需更多信息，请联系位于泰米尔纳德邦 Erode 区 Kodumudi via 的 Oonchalur Post Karukkamapalayam 的 Chellamuthu，电话：04204-266127，手机：9486602389。