Factors and patterns of pesticide usage and sustainability of cardamom Elettaria cardamomum L Maton in Indian cardamom hills

Abstract

Small cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum M.) is traditionally grown in the Indian newlineCardamom Hills (ICH) of the Western Ghats, Kerala. The Western Ghats of India have newlinebeen considered one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world. Currently the production of cardamom in major producing countries consumes very high quantity of pesticides and other chemicals. Although the chemical intensification of cardamom farming in ICH has been going on for the last two decades, sufficient information and data are not available on the quantity of pesticides used by cardamom as in the case of majority of the crops in India .Cardamom cultivation in India might have experienced deterioration of ecosystem because of current growing practices of intensive chemical application and shade lopping that radically changes the properties of cardamom ecosystem components (soil and water.). Also the impacts of chemical intensification on the ecosystem properties are not well known which is very important for such a densely populated biodiversity hot spots like cardamom hills. A comprehensive investigation of factors that affect pesticide usage like climate newlinechange, soil biochemical properties and agronomic practices including shade lopping was done for drawing new information that can be used for the long term sustainability of newlinecardamom ecosystem. Pesticide consumption data were drawn from the personal newlineinterviews of 103 cardamom planters from the ICH. The analysis of the data collected newlinefrom questionnaire interviews showed that cardamom consumed more pesticides than tea newlineduring the year 2009. Among the pesticides consumed by cardamom the use of newlineinsecticides was the highest followed by fungicides and hormones. In tea plantations the herbicide consumption was higher than the insecticides and fungicides. The application of hormones and growth regulators in tea was much lesser. Pesticides were applied on newlinecalendar basis in less than 28 days interval.