The moong dal commonly referred to as green gram is an important crop belonging to the fabaceae family. India is one of the largest importer, producer and consumer of pulses.
India cultivates these pulses with minimum use of resources and hence it becomes less costly compared to animal protein. Among the pulses, green gram is the source of high quality protein with good digestability and moong is consumed as a whole grain. SSL 1827 is a variety made by cross breeding rice bean and green gram. the variety is mainly resistant to yellow mosaic virus. Other varieties are ML 2056, SML 666, SML 832 and DMB 37.
Conditions
The climatic and soil management in organic moong dal production goes by the fact that moong dal grows in an altitude of 0-1600m above sea level and under warm climatic conditions 20-30 degrees.
Green grams are well suitable to red sandy loam soils but also reasonably do well in not too exhausted sandy soils. Green grams are not tolerant of poorly drained wet soils. Moong dal can be cultivated in a wide range of soil and best results are from well drained loam sand soils.
Soil management
The optimum ph level should be 6.5 to 7.5 and fairly tolerant to soil salinity. Land preparation for moong dal production requires organic cultivation since there is no need for fine seed bed.
Moong dal is cultivated on deep soils. Tillage ensures total mixing of fertilizers and manure in the soil. It prevents the growth of weed and helps the seed in germination as well as help in avoiding soil erosion and helps to hold the soil moisture.
Pest control
The most popular pest found in moong dal is stem flies that affects the plant in early stages thereby leading to drying and withering of the crops.
These can be controlled by spraying neem oil and insecticides. You can also control them the organic way by hand picking or using the integrated pest management method. Harvest the moong dal when 85 percent of the pod is mature and this can be done by 2-5 hand pickings per week.
