Amway claims agri products increase yield Pradipta Mukherjee / Kolkata March 03, 2009, 0:31 IST Amway

India, the Rs 1,100 crore direct selling FMCG company, is looking atintrod ucing more agricultural products, following encouraging researchresults from ins titutes like Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, WestBengal, and Kerala Agricu ltural University, Kerala.According to William S Pinckney, MD and CEO, Amway Ind ia, We went to agriuniversities in India and gave them our products to test on cr ops. These institutes have come up with research reports, which show that after using our agri products, yield has increased. We have tried it on tea, rice, coffee an don other crops. We have launched Apsa 80 which have shown remarkable growth in yield for many crops. We are looking at introducing more agricultural productsdependin g on what research by Indian institutes throw open. This will alsohelp us unders tand India s requirements and accordingly tailor-makeproducts, Pinckney added.Bidha n Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya in West Bengal tried Apsa-80 onguava. According to its reports, application of Blitox-50, Captan, Chlorothalonilindivi dually in combination with Apsa-80 showed better disease control on all three ty pes of diseases which resulted in 1 kg, 1.5 kg and 2 kg increase per plant respe ctively, and 10 per cent, 8.8 per cent and 6.4 per cent increase inchlorophyll c ontent in leaf respectively.Likewise, Kerala Agricultural University conducted t ests on banana andcoffee crops. The university pointed out that application of C arbenzadim incombination with Apsa-80 showed a 6.5 per cent reduction of leaf sp otinfection over the application of insecticide alone, which resulted in nine pe r cent increase in yield in bunch weight.Also, application of chlorpyriphos in c ombination with Apsa-80 showed 100per cent and 50 per cent reduction respectivel y of Pseudo Stem Borer attackafter six months and during harvest over the applic ation of insecticides only.This resulted in a 23 per cent increase in yield in b unch weight. For coffee, the University s research said that aplication of carbaryl incombinati on with Apsa-80 showed a 52.49 per cent and 43.6 per centreduction of mealy bug and coffee borer infestation respectively over theapplication of insecticide alo ne. As a result, there was an increase of a 46.4per cent in the yield of coffee. Moreover, copper oxychloride sprayed incombination with Apsa-80 decreased sever ity of rust disease in coffee by23.9 per cent over the use of insecticide alone. As a result, an increase of 13.33 per cent in the yield of coffee was possible, the university pointed out