Cultural Operations | Cover Crop | Nurse Crop | Beating Up Operations
Table of Contents
CULTURAL OPERATIONS:
Cultural operations are carried out to assist the crop to complete regeneration. If some operation before planting or sowing is done it will also be cultural operation. No income in turn of money received in cultural operation.
Cultural operations even involved some tending operations. Removal of saplings, weeding, soil working or operations excluded in ‘tending operations’ is also involved in cultural operations.
COVER CROP:
A cover crop is meant for covering soil. Interspaces are not covered especially in case of light demanders. Since crowns hardly touch each other, the soil is either occupied by weeds or exposed to light wind and rains. So it needs protection against erosion hazard and improvement in fertility as well.
For this purpose some leguminous shrubs, small trees or herbs are grown but until now there is no good cover crop available in Pakistan and almost all crops compete with actual spp.
NURSE CROP:
- These are meant for tender spp and tenderness is usually in younger age. So for this, an additional crop is raised under which the actual crop is grown. The guardian crop is grown first after which the actual crop is raised.
- Some spp are shade bearing. Such spp are so tender that they are killed by direct sunlight, some are less shade bearing, and others are more. For instance, some firs have open wide forest in the hill. This is due to the reason that seedlings are hypersensitive but in later ages, they become hardy and light demander.
- For Abies pindrow, nurse crop is Pinus wallichiana (blue pine) is required. Walnut and Poplar can also serve the same purpose.
- Another example is an IP of Punjab where Shisham is serving as a nurse crop for mulberry.
BEATING UP OPERATIONS:
- 100% Success cannot be expected in sowing or planting. These blanks are to be filled immediately. This is called as Beating Up Operations.
- If planting was accomplished in Feb-April, start replacement after April. The process should not be delayed as the crop grown first will gain height and infilled will become suppressed.
- Soil may because of this failure. So before beating up failures soil will be rectified.
- Infilling should be of the same spp.
Image: apsc prelims
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