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Initially he was in sugar cane. Then he switched to papaya and finally to vegetables. Thus he had a variety of experience when he decided to switch over to banana plantation. He knew that it won’t be easy. But he was confident of one thing. He knew it could be done only and only if he was prepared to take the efforts. And those efforts are now set to produce bananas. This is the story of Vijay Munot, a resident of Belvandi (Tal Shroginda) Along the main road of the village, goes a winding gravel road, It takes one to a huge banana plantation, spread over 10 hectares, that belongs to Munot.; At the time when he decided to enter into banana plantation, Munot had done his homework. He know of the demand and the prices of banana prevailing in the market. The technical information about the fruit was available at the National Horticulture Mission (NHM) office in Nagar. But the challenge lied elsewhere. The piece of land on which he wished to take the plantation was a sort of wasteland. He had to first convert the land into cultivable one. Banana requires brittle soil. Ploughing the land helped him make it brittle. Developing beds was the next step. Watering the plantation is important. For this purpose he chose to implement a drip irrigation system. For the land spread over 26 acres a single drip system has been installed using modern technology. Probably, it is the one of its kind system in the district. He installed the system raising necessary finances on his own.; Munot then procured G-9 variety of banana, which, he was informed, gives more output than any other variety. He had to invest Rs. 15,000/- per acre of which Rs. 6,000/- came in the form of grant from the NHM. In other words he invested Rs. 1.5 lakh in a 10 acre plot.; Banana plantation requires manual labour in large proportion. Initially, Munot himself worked along with other labours. After the plantation, it was watered using the drip system. While doing so, he added soluble fertilizers and micronutrients in the water. This again required some improvisation in the drip system. The central part of the system mixes the ingredients with water, thus providing equal and exact amount of each to every plant. Once the fructification begins a supplementation is carried out, in which process boosters are provided to the plant. This is the first year of the banana plantation of Munot. He expects an output of 35 to 40 tonnes, meaning every cluster of banana should weigh around 45 kilograms. As he has been successful in preventing perish-ability of the cluster he expects to draw bananas thrice from each cluster. He would prefer Mumbai market for the produce. ;
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