Betel nut plantation tips in brief.

 

Source -  Export Agriculture Department Sri Lanka.

Let’s start with the primary maintenance of planting young sprouts in beds.

After finishing planting as beds of the betel nut keeping the betel nut bed in the shade, it should be watered daily. If in sunny weather it has to be watered twice daily. Germination of betel nut will start in 21 of days. In 4-6 weeks of planting, start to avoid the shade gradually. Take 6-7 weeks to remove the full shade if many leaves are appeared. However, giving of little shade is still important too. As the betel nut grows the height of temporary shade giving crossed lines should be changed and implemented as they grow higher.

Let’s focus on betel nut manure.

Bed Method

      When harvesting from a betel plantation in 2-3 weeks of short time period, large quantities of organic matter are removed from the field. Hence according to the calculations done, in an area of 1-hectare size betel nut plantation in a year 7200kg of dried organic matter is removed and 288kg of Nitrogen, 33kg of Prosperous and 302 kg of Potassium are removed from the soil. In addition to this in the betel plantation to grow the betel nut leaves in optimum quality, magnesium fertilizer plays an important role. Therefore, the fertilizer mixture should contain the above mentioned four fertilizer types.

Thus the main types of plant nutrients removed from the soil are basically supplied back by chemical fertilizers. However, to maintain soil fertility, and to protect the moisture of the soil, and to provide micro nutrients to the soil, it is required to add well decomposed cow dung, goat manure or organic fertilizers like compost.

Green manures and organic fertilizers suitable for betel cultivation.

The most suitable fertilizer for betel nut plantation is well decomposed cow dung. If necessary goat dung can be used also. They take time to decompose. Chicken manure is more nutritious than the above two manures. When added excessively while the betel nut plantation grows abundantly, it becomes susceptible to leaf spot disease. And it is observed that when they are added its roots rots occurred.