Surge in farming activities during lockdown reflects in spike in biocapsule demand

Reflecting a surge in farming activities during the lockdown days, biocapsules, a biofertilizer technology developed by the ICAR-Indian Institute of Spices Research (IISR) at Kozhikode in Kerala, has witnessed a spike in sales.

While the average monthly sale of biocapsules was 400, during May this year it reached 4,000. The sales during May to August was 6,000. Apart from Kerala, farmers from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Northeast states including Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura are using the biocapsules.

IISR director Dr Santosh J Eapen said that biocapsules would help in maintaining soil fertility and productivity as well as in improving soil quality and environment quality. It would also ensure successful delivery of biologically competent beneficial microbes.

"During the lockdown, there has been considerable spurt in household vegetable cultivation. Grow bag cultivation of ginger and turmeric also witnessed a spurt. One capsule can be diluted using 100 to 200 litre water based on the microorganism present in the capsule. Four thousand capsules is equivalent to 4000 kg talc-based formulation of microorganisms. As one capsule weighs only one gram, a farmer can easily replace four ton of formulation with four kg capsules," said Eapen.

The biocapsule developed by IISR, which is an agency under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, uses miro organisms like Trichoderma, Pseudomonas and Bacillus.