Abstract

Garlic is one of the most important spice crops in this Province but its cultivation is restricted to certain parts of Coimbatore, Madura and Bellary districts, probably because of its being able to thrive only under the peculiar envionments prevalent in these tracts. At Bellary only one crop is raiseri from October to January while at Coimbatore there are two seasons, the first one from June to September and the second from November to January. The duration is reported to vary from 2 to 3 months necorrling to the local conditions. The maturity of the crop is indiented by the flowering of the plants and the formation of the small size-bulbs, but a certain amount of experience is necessary to decide the actual stage at which the bulbs are to be lifted. The yield varies from 1,500 to 7,000 lbs., but the average may be taken as somewhere about 4,000 lbs. In spite of the attractive prices the produce fetches, the ryots are only luke-warm about its expansion, more in a spirit of sheer helplessness against the minute insect the thrips which regularly infest the crop year after year, often causing its wholesale ruin, not to speak of one or two fungoid diseases which also levy their toll. D.D.T. and B.H.C. were tested against this insect recently and the following is a short account of the details of the pest and the lines of contorl.

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