Mountain/Rural Market Economy

Green House Management Training: By Tota Jan
In district Gilgit and Ghizer agriculture is the main source of livelihood. It is famous for its vegetables and fruits because of its favorable climatic condition and rich soil. On the other hand because of dispersion of the area in single cropping zones most of the vegetables are being imported form down country i.e. Islamabad and Mansera in early and off season. To fulfill this production gap, the concept of green houses has been successfully launched. These green houses will be used for production of early seedling and off season fresh vegetables. This idea is the best alternative solution to cope the problems of single cropping zone. This new creativity in agriculture practices by using green houses will increase the farmer’s vegetable crop yields to make the harvest more productive and more profitable.
Many warm season vegetable crops can bring a higher price early in the growing season before large supplies are available. In order to encourage early and off season
Vegetable production and capture the profitable early And off season market, growers can use plastic tunnels. Recently, a few farmers have begun using plastic mulches in combination with tunnels to speed up the harvest date for some crops. However, plastic mulches by themselves, whether black or clear, provide little extra heat to advance the harvest date significantly. The tunnels promote early growth by warming the air surrounding the plants, using heat from the sun. The tunnels also protect plants from frost that can destroy or damage plants. Greater overall crop yields are obtained when the plants come into earlier production and continue to bear throughout the season. This combination of earliness and greater yields can significantly increase profits for the growers.

TRAINING CONTENTS
1. Importance of Green House.
2. Seed Bed Preparation and application of fertilizers
3. Method of sowing
4. Irrigation
5. Application of fungicides
6. Transplant of seedling
7. Hoeing and weeding

The high tunnels enhance productivity and profitability of producing vegetable crops. High tunnels are similar to low tunnel design and function, except that;
1. One high tunnel covers several rows,
2. The high tunnels are wide enough to allow crop growth to full maturity under the tunnels and
3. The tunnels are tall enough to allow spraying, cultivation and harvesting to occur with the tunnels intact.
Rolling up the sides and/or opening the end doors of the high tunnels provide both ventilation and access to the crop by pollinating insects.

The initial costs of materials and installation of high tunnels are considerably higher than traditional low tunnels. However, the economics of production with high tunnels may still be favorable if;
1. They increase yields,
2. They enhance earliness resulting in greater market access at a time when prices are at a premium,
3. The high tunnels are durable enough to be used for several seasons, thereby amortizing the costs of materials and installation over a greater length of time


Layout formation
Proper utilization of land is very important for maximum raising of transplants and that can help to minimize the damage of plants. Furthermore it help to manage the activities i.e. irrigation channel, foot path, easily use gricultural tools and get proper maximum light.
Seed Bed Preparation and Application of Fertilizers:
Nutrient regimes for transplant production sometimes differ greatly among the various crops grown and the type of irrigation employed. Other variables such as environmental conditions due to location of the transplant facility and seasonality dictate continued research for optimizing fertility and irrigation procedures for containerized vegetable transplant production. More recently, continued refinement of the floatation irrigation system offers growers the ability to better control diseases in the greenhouse and overall plant growth. The present overview rates much of the recent literature related to optimizing vegetable transplant nutrition.

Bed consists of variety of soil and bed is the mother of plant where plant takes food through toot hairs from the soil bed. Bed play important role in plant or nursery development and need to well prepared before planting of target crop. Nursery bed should be contain Ratio of 1:1:1 means silt:sand: Farmyard manure. During the bed preparation some quantity of Nitrophos fertilizer applied which help in initially early growth and early development of the transplants

Method of Seed Sowing:
There are tow types of common methods of sowing like broad coasting and line sowing. Mostly farmers of northern areas use traditionally method like broad coasting , In this method about 50% seed lose by through irrigation water and some will in gone in soil depth . The ideal method for nursery sowing is line sowing, in this method artificially keep space, soil depth and seed quantity.
.Transplants treatment
This is done before transplanting in the actual field, when transplant get two to three leaves and gain maximum size then will ready to shift in the field. When transplant get maximum size then can be shifted to field. Before transplanting the actual field should be well prepared like beds, ridges, fertilizer application and contain maximum soil moisture in the field .Transplanting shifting in early evening and not in the morning. Mostly crops like tomato, bell peppers, and onions suffer early after transplanting and even attack diseases like damping off, wilting cause by micro organism like fungi. These diseases can be controlled when treated at the time of transplanting with fungicides like redomil and score.


Cultural practices
Practices like weeding, hoeing, watering can be done at the best time .Its help to get maximum growth of plants of target crops.
1. It help early growth
2. Low chance of disease
3. Maintain health transplants