Starting an orchard - from Masanobu Fukuoka's Natural way of farming

Lot of people think that natural farming is about just cut and mulch with the grass growing in your farm and fertility of the land will improve. I was also doing that but as the fertility was not improving fast and also discussions with many people led me to the conclusion that, natural farming is not just cutting and mulching what naturally grows. I have the habit of referring 'One straw revolution' and 'The natural way of farming' again and again, and I get more clear picture.


Here are some details from page 114 of 'The Natural Way of farming' written by Masanobu Fukuoka.


"When starting an orchard, the main goals initially should be prevention of weed emergence and maturation of soil. These can be accomplished by growing buckwheat during first summer, and sowing rapeseed and Indian mustard that same winter. The following summer, one may plant adzuki bean and mung bean and in winter hairy vetch and other hardy leguminous plants that grow well without fertilizers. The only problem with these is that they tend to inundate the young fruit tree saplings. As the garden matures, it will support any type of crop."

Page 158 - Establishing an Orchard talks about -


"Rather than carting the trunks, branches, and leaves of felled trees off a contour-cleared orchard site, it makes more sense to arrange this material along contour lines and wait for it to decompose naturally. The branches, leaves, and roots of the trees decompose after several years, becoming a source of organic fertilizer that supplies nutrients to the growing fruit trees. At the same time, a cover of organic matter helps to curb weed growth, prevents soil washout, stimulates the proliferation of microorganisms, and serves to enrich and otherwise improve the soil."


"After preparing the orchard soil, the next concern is planting. Fruit saplings should be planted at equal intervals along hill contours. Dig a fairly deep hole, fill it with coarse organic matter, and plant the sapling over this."

 

"Upto ten of black wattle leguminous trees should be planted per quarter acre among fruit trees. After five or six years of growth, I felled these and buried trunks and tops in trenches within the orchard"

Fukuoka san also talks about growing a permanent ground cover in the orchard, and he was growing clover which reseeds and is leguminous. So all these things are required as part of natural farming.

Along with growing cover crops, I started early on to dig trenches and fill them with organic matter to speed up the process of soil enrichment. I tried using a variety of organic materials such as straw,hay,twigs and small branches,ferns,wood and bark chips and lumber. After comparing the results, I found that hay,straw and ferns, which I would have expected to be least expensive,were in fact costly, while wood chips were not.The only problem was hauling this material in. As it turned out, the best material was lumber,which was relatively inexpensive but this too was at times, difficult to carry in. That is when I decided to produce lumber right there in my orchard. Figuring that the easiest and most beneficial way was to return the orchard what had been growing there, I tied planting various types of trees and found black watlle to be the best for the purpose.

Dibbling stick for rice transplanting through mulch

I was trying rice transplanting into the cut grass mulch for 2nd crop cultivation of rice in Nov 2011. Then I realized it is difficult to plant through mulch when Palani and his wife started the planting. Using spade through mulch was difficult and also soil was disturbed and I feared that this might bring more weeds. Also it was taking long time, and it was boring to do the work since it was difficult to work through mulch.

Later my helper Palani went and brought a dibbling stick and he started making holes through mulch just pressing it and his wife was planting the rice seedlings. All of us felt happy that the method was working very well. But one thing to remember is that the mulch should be in decomposed state otherwise planting is difficult since finding mud to fill the hole created using dibbling stick becomes tricky.

One thing which went wrong with this is that the hole was deeper and hence plants didn't develop much since nutrients are less at deeper levels. Normally while transplanting plants are planted at a lesser depth. Jacob Nellithanan sir told me about this later and advised a depth of 1-2 cm. One reason why in SRI plants develop more is that it is planted at a lesser depth. Also planting deeper causes the water requirement to be more. They say transplanted rice needs less water compared to broadcasted since depth is less in transplanting.

Here are some pictures  ..

No-till rice farming in Alappuzha,Kerala

Yesterday talked to Jacob Sebastian of Kuttanad,Alappuzha,Kerala, after coming to know that he has been doing no-till rice farming. Traditionally in Kuttanad, rice field is submerged in water and they do one crop of rice in October-November time, after pumping out water. Lot of people do tilling and do normal cultivation in the land. Jacob Sebastian allows drains out water and then allow the weeds to grow, which comes out in 1 week time. Once weeds come out, he again allow standing water and all weeds are killed, by allowing water for 2-3 weeks and after that rice is sown in the field. He uses Uma and Jyothi varieties. Earlier he used chemical fertilisers and pesticides but now he uses only organic fertiliser, especially using 'Kadala pinnakku (ground nut waste after taking oil) ' mixed with compost. He knows Fukuoka's method and asked me to grow cow pea along with rice and later allow standing water to weaken cowpea.

Weed control in natural rice farming

These are the important aspects in weed control in natural rice farming. This is the summary taken from 'One straw revolution' and some from others experience and some taken from my own experience. I haven't mastered these techniques yet, but think these are the things to be taken care of.

1. No-tilling - Tilling brings out the buried seeds back to surface and this has better germination capacity. So without tilling, seed resources on the field will be exhausted and hence weed population will decrease eventually. But there are other sources of seeds like rain water, wind etc. Flooding of rain water from other fields has to be prevented for better weed control.

2. Mulching - Mulching with remains of previous crop reduces weed, since mulching does not provide sunlight and hence the weed population decreases. Considerable amount of mulching will be required for better weed control. So when you are staring, mulch with as much as you can. Twigs, branches etc..provide good mulch and weed control.

3. Leguminous cover crop before - Have a leguminous cover crop in the field before planting grain and it is said that grass varieties does good in leguminous cover crop. If the grain is sown in leguminous cover crop, and then cover crop is cut and mulched, good weed control can be assured.

4. Leguminous cover crop along with rice - If there is another cover crop which grows along with grain, it is the best. Like Fukuoka san used clover along with rice. Clover does not interfere with rice, and if it takes control flooding the field weakens the clover and once the rice takes over, clover will grow beneath the rice. Once the clover is weakened and rice comes out, he later Fukuoka drains water so that clover again establishes underneath. This kind of water control is required to control the cover crop. Clover does not grow well in all the climates, so for each region a suitable cover crop has to be found out.

5. Rice that can compete with weeds - Rice also was a wild growing variety in the past, but after cultivating in controlled environment with all the extra care, they are no longer wild. But while selecting the rice, if we can use the variety which is not hybrid, rather local variety they will compete with weeds more effectively. See the video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdYAS_OPhJA where Thiru. Karikalan explains his rice cultivation using local variety called 'Kattuyanam'. This takes 6 months to mature and grows 7 feet tall. It is pest resistant and gives good yields without applying any manure. Till 1 feet there will be weeds, afterwards the rice still grows tall and weeds loose the competition. This variety is supposed to be drought tollerant as well as flood tolerant and has medicinal values.

Fukuoka san used a variety which he had developed called Happy Hill. According to his words in Natural farming book.

"I have created, together with the insects in my fields, a new strain of rice I call
"Happy Hill." This is a hardy strain with the blood of wild variants in it, yet it is also one of the highest yielding strains of rice in the world. If a single head of Happy Hill were sent across the sea to a country where food is scarce and there sown over a ten- square-yard area, a single grain would yield 5,000 grains in one year's time.". Not able to find the source of its seeds, so if anyone knows please report back.

http://ro119.com/archive/osaka.cool.ne.jp/shojaku/ - According to the following source..these are the variants of the Happy Hill rice..

Fukuoka invented and registered three varieties of rice.
Fukuoka 1 gou(Fukuoka No.1)-fast growing,
Fukuoka 2 gou(No.2)-late growing,
Fukuoka mochi 3 gou(glutinous No.3).
There are not much information available on this, but it is said to have wild strains in it.

6. Timing of crops - Depending on the season, the crop should be sown, so that it emerges first before the weeds. For e.g in kerala, weeds will start emerging heavily as the rain starts. Before the weeds start germination, rice should be sown and established. Once the crop is established, later weeds won't come that easily. A few sentences from 'One Straw Revolution' - Coping with Weeds - If seeds are sown while the preceeding crop is still ripening in the field, those seeds germinate ahead of weeds. Winter weeds sprout only after the rice has been harvested, but by that time winter grain already has a head start. Summer weeds sprouts right after the harvest of barley and rye, but the rice is already growing strongly. Timing the seedling in such a way that there is no interval between succeeding crops gives the grain great advantage over the weeds.

7. Continous coverage - Once the field is left uncultivated after a season, weeds take over. It is better that field is continously used for one crop or other. When there is no crop, better to use a cover crop so that there is no chance for weeds to emerge. Again, depending on climates, the cover crop for that region has to be selected.

8. Crowding out weeds - The crop should be planted dense so that it can crowd out the weeds. In my first rice planting experiment, I maintained 1 feet distance between seedlings and weeds came up strongly in the vacant spaces. This kind of distance may be OK for SRI rice, since there field is completely ploughed and seasoned so that weeds are not given a chance at all. But in natural farming, we have to crowd out weeds using crops.

9. Allow weeds to germinate in summer - In one of the book Fukuoka san mentioned to water the area in the summer so that weeds germinate and then stop the watering, and weed seeds gets destroyed.

10. Weeder Ducks. Fukuoka used ducks to control weeds in his rice paddy in the initial days. http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~Aigamo21/Furuno%20book/Book1.html The following link also talks about this. Ducks don't eat rice, but young weeds, may be this is applicable in transplanted fields where the rice plants are more mature.  Links - http://www.detourjapan.com/furuno.html, http://permaculturenews.org/2009/03/07/the-one-duck-revolution/

11. Consideration for weeds - As some body told, weeds are sown by god and crops by man. Control weeds only when it tries to control your crop, otherwise allow it to grow, change your attitude towards weeds.

Rice cultivation update - 2nd Crop 2011

This is the update about my rice cultivation and planning to update it as and when some events occur in this activity.


October 28,2011
Yesterday night there was rain and land was reasonably wet. This is called 'Thulamazha' or North east monsoon. Typically it will be there in October and November. Cut the paddy field 2 using Honda brush cutter with blade attachment. One session in the morning and another session in afternoon each around 2.5 hours. My mother had accompanied me to farm this time, so gave the broadcasting paddy seeds and horse gram work to her and she was happy to do that. As and when I cut the field she broadcasted the seeds and when I complete that area, she will again broadcast the seeds. Used around 2Kgs of 'Poonkar seed' with 700gms of horse gram, but it was not sufficient for the complete area. The rest of the area will be transplanted.

Paddy field 3 has some grasses already grown, but since Honda cutter is there, one more round of cutting can be done very quickly. This is the advantage of the cutter, manual cutting is just impossible. The places where mulching was done with sunhemp only a few creepers were seen and grass was under control as of now.

This time I am planning to get rice seedlings from the organic farm of Thanal in Erimayoor, Palakkad. The person in charge, Illias has promised to give enough rice seedling, to be seen.

November 05,2011
Yesterday collected 20 bundles of rice seedlings from Illias of Thanal. They have a farm in Padayatti, Erimayoor. They were transplanting seedlings and they don't get canal irrigation water and depends on rain for the 2nd crop also. They have at well and they will pump water from it, if there is a need at the end. Illias told about an interesting thing about fertilizing the rice fields. There are people who has got big number of goats and if asked they will keep the goats in your field for a night providing a temperory fencing. By morning the field will have pellets and their urine and it is a good fertilizer. These people charge the owner of the field at 50 paise per goat. Illias is an active person, I asked him how does he spends his evening in the village and he says he is too busy with reports, organising meetings, travelling etc..

When I visited, previously sown rice and horse gram had germinated in some
 areas well and in some areas it was not seen at all. But in some places it
  is grass which is dominating !!!
Today plan was to transplant the rice seedlings, in remaining area. I had my helper and his wife working along with me. We were using spade to put the seedlings and found that this was disturbing the soil and effort was too much. My helper friend went and made a dibbling stick and using that he made holes and started transplaning the seedlings and work was completed quite faster. This is a really good tool for transplanting without disturbing the soil. The depth of the hole has to be controlled by controlling the size of the sharp end. Also it is better that the stick is little thicker so that we get a wider hole.

  In one portion where I had cut the grass/sunhemp 2 weeks back, grass had
  grown back, after getting some good rains.So I cut this grass once again
  with brush cutter, otherwise there is no chance that rice will survive the
  grass. Here the timing is very critical..if I had sown a week or
  immediately along with cutting, then this problem wouldn't have beenn
  there. But if I miss the window, then to recover in NF, it is a problem.

  In one portion of the field I have broadcasted rice + horse grams and here
  there is standing water, so not sure what will happen and it is raining
  heavily. May have to make provisions for draining water from field by
  tomorrow. Last time when I tried broadcasting seeds after ploughing,
  peacocks ate most of the seeds, but this time since seeds are put in the
  mulch, it may not be completely visible to them. Earlier I was thinking
  sunhemp mulch will be too thick to handle, but after 2 weeks of drying, it
  was nothing in the field..

Another 2 fields are still left out, will be doing some thing soon on
them.

Planting of banana on my home garden

In 2010 september, one old person brought some banana suckers for selling. He was very old and weak and he was carrying the suckers on a sack and was coming from a long distance (Kozhinjampara in Palakkad,Kerala). Myself and my wife thought we can experiment with 2 banana suckers and bought it for 20/-. It was a very thin one and he had cut it and shaped it, but he assured that it will grow nicely.

The rented house where I stay now, has some backyard space and since all the kitchen and other wastes gets accumulated here, the soil is black and fertile. Also there are lot of earth worms/castings so aeration in the soil looks very good which is an important factor for good plant growth. As Bhaskar Save points out, the aeration is the most important factor, since you can not even live after holding the breath for long time.  No strong grasses (like crab grass grows there), but some grasses which can be easily cut or uprooted grows there. I made two pits so that the sucker almost completely goes in and mulched with grass and watered it. The land was already wet after the rains.Both the plants came up well and in hot summer we again mulched around it and poured some water.

In summer we watered it some times and since there was mulch around, moisture was there. In summer we were not there for close to a month still they survived. Once the rain started they started growing vigorously and finally it flowered. There were squirrels running around and taking honey from there. When mother-in-law visited us, she gave a support using a plastic rope so that it can withstand winds. We thought to cut it only after squirrels taste the first riped one, but today morning it had bent down..so finally cut it. It was having 59 banana's and totally weighing around 8Kgs..it really looked big for us, especially since we didn't put much effort for it. But the credit goes to the good soil which were built up probably over the years from the kitchen waste and all other organic wastes which get accumulated.

Meeting of some people related to One Straw Revolution

I was lucky to met some of the people related to one straw revolution and here are some details about it. Here is the experience of meeting some such people..

The first book which I read on organic farming was 'Urvarathayude Sangeetham' (Song of fertility) by K.V.Dayal. This book mentioned about Masanobu Fukuoka and internet search gave me details about One Straw Revolution. I picked up the malayalam version of One Straw Revolution called 'Ottavaikkol viplavam' from Altermedia Trichur. This book gave a good understanding about natural farming and talks about general philosophies about life and concludes that the farmer's life is simple and rewarding. The way Fukuoka experimented and reached the 'Do nothing' farming was quite interesting. I felt that these are the kinds of books which will interest me.

In one of the visit to Palakkad looking for a land, was talking about 'Ottavaikkol viplavam' (malayalam translation of 'One straw revolution') and friend's  father mentioned that he has read this book long back and he knows the person who had translated it, his name was C.P.Gangadharan from a place called Chengaloor which is just 5KMs away from my house. I searched in the BSNL web site and could get the phone number of  C.P.Gangadharan.

I called C.P.Gangadharan and when I introduced he asked where I had done my schooling and he was a malayalam teacher in the same school. I couldn't recollect him, I had studied sanskrit in school instead of malayalam. I checked with my sister who had done schooling from the same school and she remembered him well and finally from the descriptions I also could get him. Later went and met him and was interesting to hear his experiences with the translation, his friendship with Partap Agarwal and his experience of meeting Fukuoka when he had come to Pondicherry Aurobindo Ashram. He also talked about his experiments with natural paddy farming where he had put the seeds in the field using a stick. His experiment had failed since rats came and destroyed the crop since there was no standing water. But he was practicing natural farming in his small farm. He also mentioned about some one experimenting with rice with cowpea so that cowpea crowd out grass.

C.P.Gangadharan master at his home

                                          C.P.Gangadharan master at his farm

From Gangadharan master I came to know about Partap Agarwal who had taken initiative to bring 'One straw revolution' to India. Came to know that he is part of Navadarshanam (www.navadarshanam.org) and got his number. Called him and he was staying in whitefield, Bangalore and just about 4-5KMs away from where I was staying in Bangalore. Met him at his house in white field and came to know about his activities and Navadarshanam.

According to him all the civilizations were found under sand and the reason is that even though there were doing organic cultivations the land is depleted and ultimately it turns to sand. There were lot of buildings, drainage systems in the old civilizations but it finally gets destroyed. As hunter-gatherers there was no impact on ecology and people do work for just 2 hours and there is sufficient food. The solution to this is Natural farming and we should not till the land. Rishi’s used to live on fruits and vegetables and the grain was stored for emergency situations. Rishi’s also never used to till the land.

                                   With Paratap Agarwal

On a US visit to San Fransisco just checked in the internet to see if I can contact Larry Korn. Larry Korn was one of the translators of One straw revolution to English and also introduced Fukuoka to other parts of world. He has stayed in Fukuoka's farm for one and half years. Got his email ID from the web and sent him a email and also talked to him over the phone. I was staying in Town place suites , Marriot in Newark and he was at a driving distance from my hotel. He was eager to meet me and he came to the hotel in Newark and I was thrilled to meet him. My colleague Rohit also was with him and both of us chatted with him for about an hour.

                                                With Larry Korn

In the college Larry had studied soil science, once a professor came and he was in bad mood. He said he will talk about agriculture and was telling that tilling causes gases to be released, soil fertility gets reduced. But he was indicating that, even though tilling is a problem no solutions were found.

Larry traveled to Japan after his studies and was working with his Japanese friends in their farm. He learnt agriculture, rice farming there and he heard about Fukuoka’s farm and visited. On the first day, he was looking at his rice field, and paddy was much shorter and it was fully green, with lot more grains on it. Fukuoka was 60’s that time and fully energetic. He asked Lary if he has seen such rice and he said the field is not ploughed for 25 years and still getting the yield of other farmers.

Fukuoka had seen that the grains falls from the paddy naturally and then the new seeds come after a season. From this he got the idea of how nature farms. He grows the clover which has the roots spread on the surface and does not allow the weeds to come on, while rice roots grow much inside. If you mulch in packed form, the seeds may not germinate while in scattered form it germinates well.

In the citrus orchard, the weeds they used to cut it with sickles and control. The mud hut was without doors and a fire place in the middle where people cooks food, and then they use some mats for sleeping. Chickens will be going around and water used to bring from a nearby well. Along with Larry there were another 10 interns, but he was the only American at that time. Fukuoka approached many publishers to publish his books and no one was ready for that. In 1970’s there was a big oil crisis and there were big queues.. During this time one publisher came to publish his book..He has written many articles to local newspapers and he later compiled this articles into the book called as OneStrawRevolution. During the tour in US, there were multiple enquiries on whether to publish the book in different languages and Fukuoka never bothered about the royalty and was ready for publishing it. During his visit to Washington, Partap Aggarwal came to meet him to publish the book in Hindi. Larry had met him ..

As per the Japanese tradition the eldest son is supposed to take care of the ancestral property and in Fukuoka’s case also it happens like that. Many years they lived in the hut and when he got old, he moved to the house in the village which was half a mile away.

He had been to Nevada city and he was indicating that the bushes found over there are actually helping the land to recover and people were surprised by these thoughts. Also in some part of US, they consider white clover as a weed while Fukuoka told them that he loves white clover and it is natures gift to improve the soil.

Also Fukuoka felt that no need to plant the local trees and any tree which grows in that area should be fine if nature decides that. What is more important is having trees.

According to Fukuoka observe the nature and do the cultivation as the nature prefers and don’t try to control the nature. When you scatter a set of seeds, nature will select the best seeds and allow that to grow it.. Similarly you closely watch the nature without prior knowledge and then learn..

Japanese spiritual leaders give some very difficult questions to the students which actually does not have any answer. They think, and think and finally they realize things exists beyond their intellect and then they get answer for that which in turn is an approach to god.

Fukuoka suggested that the bomber planes will be the ideal ones to be used for sowing the seedballs in the desert.

Japan is about the same size of California and has 120 million people while California population is 20 million. In cities, everywhere you can see people, totally crowded but crime rate is very less. Typically people follows all the rules as rituals and these are built into their tradition.

According Larry Korn, people in US are very scientific and hence natural farming does not suit them. But India is spiritually oriented and hence it will pick up here.

As per Fukuoka it is god who had given him the message of natural farming, and the only credit he takes is that he took it to the world. Similarly Larry came to know about Fukuoka and after seeing it he felt he should take the message to the world.

Came to know that Santhosh Koulagi had translated 'One Straw Revolution' to Kannada and he is based in Mysore.

                       Santhosh Koulagi with my family - Sindhu,Sharika and Hariprasad

Called Santhosh on previous day and he was very pleased for me to visit the place. His place is Melkote and his new village is Ramapura, 6Kms away from Melkote. The trust has another farm which is 30 acres. His farm is around 10 acres now.

He was doing E&E in engineering and in the final semester he happened to read One straw revolution and he quit his studies and stayed in the 30 acres farm alone. Then he translated One straw revolution to kannada.. He was with his father’s trust for long time and recently moved to his own place.

In the trust farm, there is a house and a small factory and also a round hall where various activities can be held. They train people in weaving clothes, now the factory was shut down.

The farm has coconut, mangoes, some other trees, avara kai (amara payer – bushy type) etc. There is a cow shed where cattles are kept. The coconut trees gives reasonably good yield, 100 coconuts per year, while national average is only 32. He has mulched using coconut leaves, etc..but since the climate is very dry, not much humas can be seen. The rain is only 450mm and he says they can only grow mainly trees.

Mango orchard is ploughed at some places, but he says tilling can be easily avoided in orchards, but not in paddy.Avarai, horse gram is very drought resistant crops, they just need moisture for germination, but otherwise don’t require much water.

He also makes compost and then applies it… he says mulching is good, but there are not enough material to mulch.

His farm is 10 acres and there is about 5 acres of paddy. He uses Rajamudi (small white rice), Selam Sannai (red rice) and another two varieties. All the variesties are long one and produces enough straw for the cows. He keeps the seeds by himself. For 5 acres paddy, he had spent around 30,000/ and he will get the return of 75,000/-. They have an association of 10 organic farmers and they sell the products through outlet in mysor.

For green manuring horse gram is better than daincha since horse gram is a mild one with one watering it will decompose, while daincha is a very hardy bush. He uses SRI method of cultivation and used 9” gap between paddy and instead of the 4” gap in conventional system. Also he has used direct seeding and has put 2 or 3 seeds in one point. The place where he stays, there is more water from ponds etc. compared to the farm which belongs to the trust. He also cultivates, beans, onion etc..  In fields they use horse gram as cover crops..He is doing SRI in some place as an experiment and next time he is planning to return the straw back to the field. He maintains cattle for milk and also for ploughing the field.

He had attended the class of Subhash Palekar, he says subhash is giving ready made formula and that is why people are interested. He also indicates, Subhash and Krishnappa makes false allegations that in 2 years they can do wonders, which is not possible. According to him, there were people earlier promoting organic farming but they didn’t succeed much, because of lack of formulas. If people find something useful they will adopt it, like mobile phone, farmers are intelligent for that.

His banana field has completed two years and now the Ratoon crops are not going good. So he is planning to replant it….He says, Subhash palekar indicates that ratoon crops can go year after year…