Ahmedabad, october 1: Some of the innovative businesses have been the result of coming together of brains from diverse backgrounds. In this case also, experts and grassroots people joined hands to bring out a range of herbal products based on the knowledge and traditional practices of the latter.

SRISTI, an organisation set up by IIMA professor Anil Gupta which promotes grassroots innovation, is going to launch five different products of herbal pesticides.

To be launched in around 10 days, these products are based purely on the knowledge of these grassroots people and their traditional practices in agriculture. SRISTI experts collected and created a vast database of such innovators and their traditional knowledge, which is now being used to develop a number of products for agriculture, medicine and others.

The products have been manufactured by Safer Biotech and would be marketed by Nirman, which is into selling and marketing of organic products.

These five products are growth promoters and effective against pests. The first is for enhancing growth of plants, while second product is effective against pests like Aphid, White Fly and Heliothis. According to Vipinkumar, SRISTI lab co-ordinator, it would control infestation of sucking pests Heliothis, a major pest in cotton.

The third product is effective in controlling shedding of flowers in plants so that it would lead to more yield, while fourth is for control of another major pest Termite. Fifth is meant to control leaf curling in plants and trees.

Giving more details about the products, Vipinkumar said that trials of these herbal products were conducted in farms in Uttaranchal, Rajasthan and Gujarat. “In the second round, around 100 farmers in Jasdan taluka in Saurashtra were given the products to experiment them in their farms. Experiments were supervised by our experts and after couple of days, 85 farmers gave positive feedback,” he said.