Visit to an Organic Horticulture-based Mixed Cropping System

    A Team of ICAR-CCARI Scientists along with honorable Director of the institute Dr. Parveen Kumar, visited Mr. Amey’s farm on 10.05.2026, as per his request on the need of horticulture crop specific scientific advisory. The team included Scientist Dr. Theivanai M (Fruit Science) and Subject Matter Specialist Dr. Nivya K R (Floriculture and Landscaping). The horticulture based cropping system of Mr. Amey is an organic farm located on hill top, situated in the Rajbag, Palolem, Canacona, Goa with an area of 83 acre surrounded by Kushavati River and Western Ghats. The farm comprises of fruit crops such as banana as a overstorey crop, dragon fruit middle storey and pineapple as an understorey crop, along with few lemon trees and papaya. Similarly, flower crops such as marigold (unique ray floret type) as a filler crop, Mexican sunflower as border crop and other flower crops such as zinnia, daisy, cosmos, dahlia, ginger lily and Heliconia. The vegetable crops included tapioca, sweet potato, yard long beans, gourds like pumpkin, bottle gourd, bitter gourd etc. The medicinal plants such as tulsi, basil, lemon grass, butterfly pea creeper and Mexican mint (Coleus ambonicus). The farm was surrounded by cashew plantation and forest tree species. The Director Dr. Parveen Kumar suggested including a butterfly garden with suitable honey bee attracting crops for improved pollination and productivity, renovation of the old polyhouse structure for cultivation of orchid, anthurium, coloured capsicum, cucumber and microgreens (vertical farming) for increasing remuneration and crop diversity and sustainability.  He also highlighted the importance of following scientific practices such as high quality planting materials in banana and pineapple, inclusion of indigenous and exotic fruit such as avocado, karonda and local berries, crop specific intercultural operation such as mulching to control weed (major problem in high rainfall region Goa) and enriching soil. Although the crops have high production compared to other farms nearby (pineapple ~7 kg, banana with more sword sucker production), to tap the unit productivity the essentiality of scientific practices on desuckering, mattoking, denavelling, bunch feeding in banana was highlighted by Dr. Theivanai (Fruit Science). Importance on use of quality planting material such as sword sucker in banana, use of slips and suckers instead of crown in pineapple to get precocious bearing, water sucker removal in lemon and hand pollination in dragon fruit for uniform high quality fruits have been emphasized. The production technology on orchids, anthurium and other high value flower crops under protected cultivation was also elucidated by Dr. Nivya K R.