WWOOF Host Experience

 WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunity in Organic Farming. This is a platform where Organic farmers can register as host and people who would like to get hands on experience with organic farming can register as volunteers. After talking to the Indian co-ordinator, Harish Tiwari I registered on this platform few years ago by paying 500/ Indian Rupees. They had given a format where I had to give a description of the farm with crops grown and typical farming activities, location of the farm and how to reach there.

According to this volunteer should be given staying facility and food and in turn they will help us in farming activities for 5 hours,5 days a week. Since I was not staying in the farm, giving food was difficult, farm has water, electricity, gas connection and all cooking utensils and I bought and gave them groceries, vegetables and fruits.

In 2026 January, there were 2 enquiries, one from a Canada couple and another from two Hyderabad Boys. Since Hyderabad Boys turned up first, there were taken as volunteers. It was a quite nice experience, there was some one to share the ideas and also hear from them. Shashi and Prithvi, were their names, Prithvi had volunteered in Late Narayana Reddy farm and also Auroville. 

They had cleaned the bases of Tamarind tree for harvesting and also cut and cleared the bunds of the main paddy field.

I could take them for a local organic group meeting in Nelliyampathy and also to neighbor farmers Raghu Mathur and Gopakumar and they stayed in Gopakumar's farm for a day. When we went to meet Gopakumar, he was attending a wedding and he invited there and we had a nice wedding feast. We also visited Narayanettan's farm Thadukkaserry.

Left Prithvi,myself,Raghu Mathur,Shashi

Gopakumar,Shashi,Myself,Narayanettan,Prithvi

Support Species

There is a saying that trees grows on trees, means trees support other trees, remains of tree becomes manure for other trees. I am just listing a set of cases which I came across about growing support trees in orchard.

Fukuoka san suggests to plant 10 black wattle trees per quarter acre for soil improvement. According to him, it acts as a windbreak and also as a shade tree during summer in warm regions.

When I visited a farmer called Iyyunni (Late) in 2009, in Anthiikkad,Trichur he was suggesting to grow as many trees as possible and cut and mulch which shades your main crop.

In a syntropic farming video Byron Grows says about global planting where many support species like eucalyptus,lucern etc...These are planted before fruit trees planted so that environment is first created. In one video he says, he plants support species as close as 75cm.

In Subash Palekar's planting pattern there is a glyricidea planted in every 4.5feet.

K.V.Dayal, a veteran organic farmer from Alappuzha,Kerala says to harvest sunlight as much as possible using plants, and no sunlight should be wasted. Harvested sunlight returned to soil is fertility.

Geoff Lawton, in his video Shade as a dryland strategy says Create shade first ->then soil improves-> then water stays -> then crops grow. Cooling the land is as powerful as adding water. Use tough fast growing trees like Prosopis (Karuvelam in Tamil?), Jerusalem Thorn, Acacia. Shade is managed...more sun in winter and more shade in summer...Instead of We need irrigation to grow plants” it comes to “We need shade first so water can stay”.

Also a single support tree type is not suggested since different strata levels are the ones which cool earth more. Each strata level will shade the land and hence totally it will be more effective.

Rainfed farming is a challenge in summer, temperature reaches above 40 degree and if summer rains are delayed, plants are stressed. So plan is to plant as many different support trees, mostly leguminous so that land is completely shaded.

Seed coating

I used to make seedballs but never had a real good method to make it and didn't use it reliably. While buying some vegetable seeds, used to see a coating, not sure what kind of material is used to coat that seeds, but saw some videos in Youtube which pours a thick liquid and while mixing with seeds, you get a decent coating, that looked interesting. But it looked like they had used chemicals and some polymer for coating seeds and that was not acceptable to me.

Recently came across some youtube videos of seed coating from Tamilnadu Agriculture University (TNAU). This used a 4% solution of gum arabic powder as binder and coating material was not very clear. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnksjRjF4dU&t=139s

Gave the problem to chatGpt and they suggested gum arabic powder, neem oil,garlic paste, turmeric powder and 1 drop of soap, wet seeds with this solution and coat with ash. At first just used gum arabic powder,turmeric and 1 drop of soap. Wetted the seedes with this solution and applied ash 3,4 times each time before applying, wetting with gum arabic solution.

Since gum arabic binds the ash well, coating was easily made, but whether ash coating will remain in sunlight and outside conditions to be seen. ChatGpt suggests to add 70% ash and 30% red soil. Initially had tried with red soil, but since the particle size was bigger it was not sticking very well. ChatGpt has given a solution to mix soil with water and allowing the sediments to settle.

Wanted to use the seedball for surface seeding in the coming rainy season, last time I put the seeds on surface and then put compost on top of it, but most of the seeds were taken by ants, immediately, wanted to avoid that.

Seed coating done with just ash, doesn't stick well, after few days, it just comes off, so mixing red soil is a must, have to try with that.

Rice variety cultivated by Late Cherkady Ramachandra Rao

 The following paragraph's are from an interview of Cherkady Ramachandra Rao which came in https://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Magazine/story/cherkady-natural-farmer/.

"One morning, I stopped in my tracks. A sturdy plant of rice, ripe with grains stood in my way. How had I missed it all these days? Where had it come from? Where it stood was no wetter than other parts of the farm and my land was by means abundant in water. I had certainly, not planted it. It was unlike any paddy I had known. It had buxom grains on 16 strands, all on one stem. It stood alone glistening in the morning sun. 

"I was overwhelmed. I took it home and shook it. There was close to a kilo of grains from that one plant! And so began my rice harvest year after year. I scattered the seeds on unploughed land, spread leaves and manure and watered it by hand. There was no attempt at flooding the patch. Slowly, the patch grew wider but it was never more than a tenth of an acre. All it called for was one man's labour for three days in a season. That was enough to feed our family of five continually, for forty years.

On reading above, I was fascinated by the simplicity of this rice farming. Since this paddy was cultivated in upland thought this variety may suit me also. I was also looking to be self sufficient in rice which we eat for lunch and dinner. I had phone number of Cherkady's elder son Manjinath Rao and talked to him but he was not aware of the details of the variety.

I was in touch with Shravyak Patil who had written a book called Paddy man of Karnataka, and he was also not aware of this rice variety.

Recently came in contact with a person called Sathyanarayana Beleri who conserves more than 650 rice seeds. He received Padmashree from Indian Government for his contibution in rice seed conservation. I just casually checked him if he knew Ramachandra Rao, so he says he started rice seed conservation after finding an article about Ramachandra Rao and he asked for rice seeds  from him and he sent some samples of Rajakayama variety. I was happy to hear this since I finally found the rice seed which I was looking for. He sent me also some seeds, I have kept this in refrigerator, will be trying out in next rainy season.

Trying traditional rice variety chuvanna modan in grow bag

 

27-Nov-2025

Chuvanna modan varity seeds were kept in cowdung water for 24 hours and sown

Trying traditional paddy variety Erumakkari in grow bag

 I took 11 seeds of Erumakkari rice variety and put in cowdung water for 24 hours and then sown in a grow bag. This is to multiply and get more seeds.

27-Nov-2025

Small variety taro

 I keep cultivating a small variety of taro which I like very much. Wild boars don't this at the beginning, but when no other food is available, they start eating this also. When they started digging and eating, I just harvested most of it in one shot. I removed skin of some and gave to my wife for cooking, and included some mother seeds also to see if they cook well. Mother seeds are the seeds which you had put last time and they would have become a large one. But that was tasting bit itchy and does not cook like other portions. So decided to plant them back and see if they again comes up or not.