have a coconut plot, thinking of putting adrak between trees, will it yield well in shade
Can I grow ginger under partial shade or in a coconut garden as intercrop?
SSuresh Nair8mo ago · 327 views
7 Answers
🌾Farmer.in Krishi TeamExpert ✓8mo ago
Ginger tolerates light to partial shade and is commonly intercropped in coconut and arecanut gardens, so a young or moderately spaced coconut plot can work. Heavy dense shade reduces rhizome size and yield, so it does best where about half sunlight reaches the floor. Make sure drainage is good between the palm rows since the rot risk is the same as open field. Do not let the ginger compete with palm roots for water and nutrients, give it its own fertiliser. Keep the intercrop only for a season or two on a given strip and rotate, to avoid building up soil borne disease. Check spacing and a suitable variety for your shade level with your local KVK.
RRajan Menon7mo ago
I grow ginger between my coconut rows and it does fine where the light comes through. Under the very thick old palms the rhizomes were small, so I keep it to the brighter strips. Drainage is still the main thing.
GGopalakrishnan7mo ago
Give the ginger its own manure and water, do not assume the coconut feeding is enough. When I fed only the palms the intercrop ginger was weak. Treat it as a separate crop sharing the space.
UUnnikrishnan7mo ago
Rotate the strip each year. I made beds in fresh inter rows and avoided the same line twice, that kept the soft rot down. Repeating ginger on the same shaded strip year after year invited the rot.
SSajeev Kumar7mo ago
Even between the palms make raised beds so the water runs off, the inter row holds water otherwise. My flat beds between the coconuts rotted in the monsoon, the raised ones came through. Drainage is the same battle as in the open field.
PPradeep Menon7mo ago
Watch the palm shade as the coconut grows, what was half sun for the ginger one year became deep shade two years on and my rhizomes shrank. Move the intercrop to the brighter younger rows as the old palms close the canopy.
VVinod Nair6mo ago
Keep the intercrop to a season or two on a strip and then shift, growing ginger on the same inter row every year built up the soft rot in my garden. Rotating between the palm rows kept the disease down. Treat it like an open field crop that needs a break from the same soil.