Staking of Tomato in Watershed Area
In a watershed, a planning should be done with sustainable growth in such a way that the environment issues are well addressed.
In horticulture interventions in a watershed , Tomato is one of the important vegetable crop grown by most of the farmers in watershed area .It is a remunerative crop .
Staking is an important intercultural operation in tomato and is done so as to provide support to the growing tomato plant. The indeterminate variety of tomato needs staking after attaining a certain height.
The forest bushes are generally used as staking material. The tomato plants are allowed to grow up with the support of bushes. It is practiced in most of the hilly watershed areas of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh state in India.
This intercultural operation of staking in tomato cultivation in watershed area creates environment imbalance.
Actually the bushes that are used for staking in tomato are collected from the forest area. Collection of bushes from forest area for staking in tomato affects the forest ecology.
It is advisable to go for alternative measures for staking in tomato. The pole and wire system is one such way in which the support can be provided to the indeterminate variety of tomato without affecting forest ecology
