When to spray cardamom — a season calendar

You decide to spray by looking at the plant, not at the calendar. But knowing what each month tends to bring means you see it early instead of after it has arrived.

No product name appears here next to a quantity. The quantity is on the label of the product in your hand and has to come from there. If you are unsure, ask the krishi bhavan.

December – January: after the harvest

Cut out dried stems and rotted leaves, carry them out of the plot and burn them. Next season's disease is sitting in that trash right now. Mark where plants died — that is where new suckers go.

February – March: the dry months

Water is the main job. Turn a few leaves over once a week: thrips start on the underside, not on a capsule that is already marked. Leaves browning off is not automatically disease — it can be sun, so look at your shade first.

April – May: summer showers and flowering

Panicles come with the first rain. This is thrips and capsule borer season. It is also the last chance to open the drains before the monsoon. Remember that spraying during flowering interferes with pollination.

June – August: the monsoon

The most dangerous months of the year. Azhukal, capsule rot, rhizome rot — all of them come from water and humidity together.

• Check for standing water at the base after every heavy rain.
• Cut out affected parts and burn them outside the plot — dropped where they are, they spread.
• Clean the knife between plants.
• Mark the clumps that got it. It comes back to the same spot next year.

September – November: picking

The thing that matters most now is not the spray, it is the waiting period. Every product's label says how many days before harvest you must stop. Capsules that ignore it fetch less at auction and come back on export testing. Those days matter more than the quantity.

Write down every round

What, when, which block. Write that much and you are not guessing next time — and it is the only way you will ever notice the same product working less well than it used to.