I first heard about this traditional paddy variety from a neighbor grandma whom I met during 2013 Onam Holidays. She had cultivated many traditional varieties and one of them was Erumakkari which gave good yield also not much care had to be given. The full report on this - https://farming-experiments.blogspot.com/2013/09/meeting-old-farmer.html.
After few years I talked to a farmer lady called Indira Lawrence from Kodakara,Trichur who cultivates this variety. I went and met her and collected some seeds, she had plenty of seeds and she gave me close to 250gms of this seed. I kept this seed and sown in next rainy season, but it didn't germinate. May be If I had kept the seeds in refrigerator it would have germinated, it had lost its viability. I told this farmer about this and she promised to give some seeds in the next season and I again went and collected this seed, she was around 80KMs away from my house. But this time also it didn't germinate and I was desperate and again she promised to give more seeds in the next year.
This year she sent me some seeds by post and I sent her happy hill rice seeds of Masanobu Fukuoka. This time when I received seeds it was slightly different from previous seeds, it was bit longer but she confirmed it was the same Erumakkari variety and it has awn. I germinated few seeds in a grow bag, and this time it germinated, but I thought, I should collect the more pure form of this variety. I heard that RARS of Pattambi has this seeds, so I called them and they said, they can not spare the seeds since they don't have such program to share the seeds with farmers now, earlier they used to share.
Recently while talking to a rice seed conservator called Sathyanarayana Beleri who conserves more than 650 rice varieties and has won Plant genome savior award and also Padmashree from Indian Government, I mentioned about this variety and he said he has some contact in RARS Pattambi and I could collect the seeds from there, if they agree. After few days, he told that seeds are with Faseela teacher and just tell her that Moosa sir has sent me, and seeds would be handed over. I was excited to collect seeds and started towards RARS Pattambi.
When I reached there, I called Faseela teacher and she was not in the office because of medical emergency and she would come after few hours and I told her that I will wait. While walking to the Seed Complex, an auto stopped near me and promised to take to the place since they were also going in that direction since it was a long walk, I just got in. Those were two young men going to meet scientist Moosa since I had time I also went along with them. They were there to discuss about chilli and brinjal farming in commercial scale and wanted some advice from Moosa sir. I also participated in their discussion and later told about my intention of my visit. He was very down to earth person and was very happy to discuss about many things about farming. His views were very practical and talked to him for close to 30 minutes. He was knowing about Indira Lawrence and he had a booklet of farmers who conserve traditional paddy seeds.
Moosa sir was suggesting to use Vysakh and start cultivation in May and with 'podi vitha' instead of the transplanting method I tried. Also other varieties like Swarna Modan, Katta Modan etc..
After having lunch in the canteen went and met Faseela teacher. She was also very co-operative and was discussing many things about different rice varieties. She mentioned Swarna Modan is one variety which they don't have with them right now and also Erumakkari was medicinal variety and she used that in her Phd work. Then I remembered about a lady contacting me over email about the Erumakkari rice variety and I quickly checked mail and it was Faseela teacher a Phd student then. She had identified a person called Suresh in Idukki cultivating this variety but he was not read to spare the seeds. Later she got it from NBPGR and kept seeds here.
I was so happy to get Erumakkari original seeds after a long struggle and sent half of it to Sathyanarayana and half is kept in refrigerator. I will be sowing some 10 seeds now itself.
From the fields of RARS Pattambi...some variety called Akshaya
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