Harvesting
When nearly 75% of the pods get matured at a time, the crop should be harvested.
Rhizobial inoculation
The legume crop have unique capacity of utilizing atmospheric nitrogen through nitrogen fixing
bacteria Rhizobium spp. in the root nodules. The local strains of the Rhizobium may not be efficient. It
is, therefore, recommended to artificially inoculate the seed with an appropriate strain of Rhizobium.
The artificial inoculation is very cheap and it increases the efficiency of the plant to fix free elemental
nitrogen from the atmosphere. Inoculation serves as an insurance for getting a good pulse crop.
Method of rhizobial inoculation
About 50 g of sugar or gur molasses are dissolved thoroughly in half a litre of water. To this solution, a
culture packet (250 g) is mixed so as to form a slurry. 10 kg seed free from dust is mixed thoroughly with the culture
with clean hands, taking care that all the seeds are equally coated with the product. This coated seed material is
spread on the polythene sheet or a clean cloth in the shade and the whole material is allowed to dry.
The coated seeds are thereafter sown in afternoon and are immediately covered with soil
with the help of a sohaga so as to avoid direct exposure of the coated seeds to sunlight.
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