Everything you need to learn about jute cultivation, harvest and growth.
Introduction to Jute (Pat, Patsan):
Jute occupies a very important position among the fibre crops and it is second only to cotton. It is the most important cash crop of eastern India, earning foreign exchange of about 3,000 million rupees annually. The crop is grown mostly in the north-eastern region of the country, particularly in West Bengal, Assam, northern Bihar, south-eastern Orissa, and Tripura eastern UP.
The total acreage of jute in India is about 0.80 million hectares and the production of dry fibre is about 6.5 million bales. Besides India, jute is cultivated on a large scale in Bangladesh. Various other countries like China, Thailand, Brazil, Peru, Burma, Nepal, Vietnam and Taiwan grow the crop to a small extent.
India is the largest manufacturer and exporter of jute products. About 82% of the total annual production of fibre is used by jute mills in India. Of the remaining 18%, 8% is retained by the growers and the balance of about 10% is exported to Europe and USA.
Jute is a bast fibre obtained from the secondary phloem of the two species, Corchorus capsularis and C. ocitorius, belonging to the family, Tiliaceae. The former is believed to have originated in Indo-Burma region and the latter in Africa. The chromosome number of both the species is 2n = 14.
(i) Corchorus Capsularis L.:
It is known as white jute, pal or tita pat. It is a low-land species. The plant is an annual undershrub, 3-6 m tall. Leaves are simple, stipulate, serrate, ovate-oblong, acute and glabrous. Flowers are small, in extra-axillary cymes, in groups of 2-5 or more, and short pedicelled. Sepals 5 are free. Petals 5 are free, yellow or pale yellow.
Stamens twice as many as petals or numerous; anthers 2-called, dehiscing laterally and longitudinally. Ovary 5-carpelled, 2-6 celled; ovules usually many in each cell; styles 2-4 mm; stigmas 2-3 fid and pubescent. Fruit a rounded capsule, 1 – 1.5 cm in diameter, wrinkled, 5 locular, many seeded. No partition between seeds. Seeds are oval, small and chocolate brown in colour.
(ii) Corchorus Olitorius L.:
It is known as mitha pat or tossa jute. It is an upland species. The plant is an annual undershrub, which attains a height up to 4.5 m. Leaves are simple, stipulate. Stipules are larger than those of capsularis, serrate and oblong. Flowers are in extra-axillary cymes, in groups of 2-5, larger than those of capsularis. Sepals 5 or 6 are free. Petals 5 or 6 are free and yellow. Stamens are numerous; anthers 2-celled, dehiscing laterally and longitudinally.
Ovary is elongated 5 or 6 carpelled. Ovules are many in each cell. Styles are 3-5 mm. Stigmas globular, entire and pubescent. Fruit an elongated, cylindrical capsule, 3-8 cm long, ridged length-wise and beaked, 5-6 celled with numerous seeds in each loculus with transverse partition. Seeds are smaller than those of capsularis, pyramidal in shape, bluish green to steel grey or black in colour.
Climate and Soil Required for Jute Cultivation:
A humid, tropical to warm subtropical climate with temperature varying between 24°C and 37°C and the optimum around 34°C is quite suitable for jute. The diurnal variation in relative humidity between 57 percent and 97 percent is favourable to the growth of the plants.
Continuous rain affects the crop adversely while capsularis varieties can stand water logging to some extent during the later stages of growth, those of the other cultivated species cannot. A minimum total rainfall of 1,000 mm, more or less evenly spread over 3 to 5 months, or during the period of vegetative growth, is essential for the crop. Alternate rainy and sunny days are very helpful.
Jute can be grown on different types of soil. Very heavy clays or very sandy soils are, however, unsuitable for the crop. The new alluvial soils with good depth, which receive periodic deposits of fertile silt from flood waters, are considered very well for raising jute. The optimum pH of the soil is around 6.4. A low pH produces a poor crop.
While jute can be grown alone for a number of consecutive years, it can also be rotated with certain other crops, more particularly, paddy and pulses. Some of the common rotations followed under irrigated conditions are jute-paddy-wheat, (jute-mung)-paddy-potato, cowpea-jute-potato, jute-paddy-berseem, jute-paddy-mustard and jute-paddy- pulses.
Cultivation of Jute:
Jute requires a clean field. As the seeds are very small, the preparation of the land should be very thorough. The clods are broken by repeated ploughing and planking until a fine tilth is obtained.
Varieties of capsularis are sown in low-lying areas that retain moisture from late February onwards. Sowing in midlands and high lands is undertaken as soon as showers are received in March or April. It continues till early June for olitorius in the western part of the jute belt. Seed-rates of 10 kg and 7 kg per hectare are adopted for broadcast sowing of capsularis and olitorius varieties respectively.
After emergence of seedlings, thinning is done in broadcast plots in two installments, once, when they are about 10 cm in height, and again, when they are about 15 cm in height, so as to have a spacing of 10 cm between seedlings. Along with thinning, all weeds are removed with a hand-hoe. Thinning and weeding operations account for 30-40 percent of the total cost of cultivation of jute.
Sowing of seeds in rows has been found to be quite advantageous. A single-row seed- drill is used for sowing capsularis varieties in rows running 30 cm apart and the olitorius varieties in rows running 20 cm apart. Seedlings are thinned in such a way so as to maintain a plant-to-plant distance between 5 and 7.5 cm. The depth at which the seeds are sown does not exceed 3-4 cm.
Manuring and Fertilization:
Farmyard manure or compost is applied at the rate of 4-7 tonnes per hectare during land preparation specially when fertilizers are not available. In the case of acid soils, 3-7 tonnes of lime should be added as soil amendment once in 3 years. Nitrogen, the most important nutrient required by jute, is applied in two installments, preferably as top dressing, the doses being 40-80 kg and 20-60 kg per hectare for capsularis and olitorius varieties respectively.
Phosphate and potash are applied as basal doses, the quantity of the former being half of nitrogen and that of the latter equal to nitrogen. When nitrogen is in short supply, foliar feeding with this nutrient is quite helpful. Foliar application at the rate of 15 kg of urea (10% concentration) per hectare in 2 installments has been found to be good for the crop. A low-volume power sprayer is used for the purpose and the nutrient is sprayed between 35 and 60 days’ age of the crop.
Weeding is an essential inter-cultural operation, particularly in the early stages of crop growth. Wheel-hoeing enables the weeds to be smothered between the rows besides mulching the soil. Two manual weeding are usually done and this practice has been found to be very good for the crop.
Harvesting:
The crop is harvested any time between 120-150 days after planting, when pods begin to appear. If harvested early, good-quality fibres are obtained, but the yield is less than that obtained in the case of late harvesting, when the fibres are coarser. Besides the above advantage, early harvesting enables paddy to be transplanted at the optimum time.
At harvest, the plants are cut at or near the ground level. In the case of flooded land, plants are uprooted. The harvested plants are left on dry land for 3 or 4 days for the shedding of the leaves, after which the plants are tied in bundles, 20-25 cm in diameter, and the branching tops are cut off and left in the field to rot.
The bundles of plants should be steeped or retted in gently flowing, fairly deep, clean, soft and tepid water for 10-12 days. The optimum temperature is around 34°C. Ditches, tanks and pools may also be used for the purpose of retting.
The bundles of plants are first made to stand on their root ends in 30 cm deep water for 2-4 days, and later placed side by side in the water, usually in 2 or 3 layers and are tied together. The bundles are covered with water hyacinth or any weed that would not give out tannin and iron. Steps should then be taken to weigh down the bundles with seasoned logs or with concrete blocks. Sometimes they are kept submerged with bamboo-crating. The depth of submergence should be at least 10 cm below the water surface.
Retting is a microbiological process, which helps the softer gummy tissues to rot out and as a result the bast fibre gets separated. From the tenth day onwards, a few plants are inspected each day to determine the progress of retting. The process is regarded as complete if the fibre slips out easily from the wood when pressed with fingers.
Extraction and Yield:
When the fibre from each stem is extracted separately with fingers, it is clean and free from entanglement. By the other method, namely, the beat-break-jerk method, 10-12 stems are taken together, their root ends are beaten with a mallet until the fibre becomes loose. The loose fibre is then wrapped round the fingers and the stems are jerked forward and backward on the surface of water so that the fibre is completely separated.
Sometimes the bundle of stems is broken in the middle to facilitate separation of the fibre. The fibre is then washed thoroughly in clean water, wrung and spread to dry, preferably in shade or mild sun. After the fibre is dry, it is tied into bundles and taken to the market for sale.
The national average yield of dry jute fibre is 13 quintals per hectare. The yield of capsularis varieties varies from 9.0 to 13.5 quintals per hectare and that of olitorius varieties from 13.5 to 18.8 quintals per hectare. An olitorius variety generally yields better than a capsularis variety, and also uses nitrogen more efficiently.
Uses of Jute:
The jute fibre is generally used for rough weaving, particularly for the manufacture of hessian, sacking and carpet backing. The bags made of sacking are used for storage and transport of cotton, wool and various food grains, sugar, spices, cement, minerals, fertilizers, etc., in different parts of the world.
The fibre has various other uses, like making mats, tarpaulins, ropes and twines. It is mixed with cotton and used for producing decorative cloth, curtains, upholstery, etc. Woollenized jute is used for the manufacture of cheap rugs.
The jute sticks are used largely as fuel, for making gunpowder charcoal and as raw material for making coarse paper. Hard boards made with resin-bonded pressed jute sticks are quite durable.
Varieties of Jute:
Both the species are grown on a large scale, capsularis varieties covering 60 percent and olitorius varieties 40 percent of the total jute area in India.
The recommended varieties are:
(i) C. capsularis – Sabuj sona (JRC 212), Shyamali (JRC 7447), D 154, JRC 1108, etc.
(ii) C. olitorius -Baisakhi tossa (JRO 632). Basudev (JRO 7835), Chaitali tossa (JRO 878), JRO 620, C.G. (Chinsurah green) etc.
Diseases of Jute:
The important diseases of jute are:
(i) Seedling blight, stem-rot, collar-rot and root-rot caused by Macrophomina phaseoli which can be controlled by growing resistant varieties, by practising crop sanitation and crop rotation and by seed treatment with Captan.
(ii) Hooghly-wilt caused by a microbial complex, including Macrophomina phaseoli, Fusarium solani, Pseudomonas solanacearum, is confined to the jute-potato fields only, which can be controlled by practising crop rotation with paddy and legumes.
(iii) Anthracnose caused by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, which can be controlled by using resistant varieties and by copper spray.
(iv) Soft rot of stem caused by Pellicularia rolfsii, which can be controlled by clean cultivation and deep ploughing.
(v) Black hand caused by Diplodia corchori, for which control measures are not known.
Insect Pests of Jute:
The important insect pests are:
(i) Jute Semilooper (Anomis sabulefera), which can be controlled by removing the larvae, spraying 0.05% Endosulfan or 0.1% Carbaryl.
(ii) Jute stem weevil (Apion corchori), which can be controlled by removing and destroying stubbles, alternate host plants, and by spraying 0.05% Endosulfan or 0.1% Carbaryl.
(iii) Hairy caterpillar (Diacrisia obliqua and Amsacta spp.), which can be controlled by dusting 5-10% BHC.
(iv) Yellow mite (Hemitarsonemus latus), which can be controlled by dusting lime sulphur (3:1) @ 20 kg per hectare or by spraying Endosulfan.
(v) Indigo caterpillar (Laphygma exigua), which can be controlled by dusting 10% BHC of Endosulfan.