I have kept a field which has not been ploughed for the last 5 years now. I had kept some plastic sheets on this to keep the weeds away, but it was not covering the full field and hence had to keep it moving to different areas. But it made weeds less and made the work of cleaning the grass easy. One male labor and one female labor cleaned the area which is 0.1 acre. Male person cleaned it using spade and kept the weeds at the side. Initially I thought cutting and keeping the weeds using sickle is best, but later spade showed to be a better tool.
Kayama seeds of 2Kg were put in water for 24 hours...Rain had receded, but hoping that it will rain in one or 2 days, seeds were sown. Since plastic sheet was put cleaning was easier. Using a sharp tool, lines were marked and seeds were put and cowdung slurry was poured. This makes seeds invisible to peacocks and also ants does not pick them. On a single day, complete sowing process was completed and one day clearing process was completed.
I was happy that in 0.1 acre land, we can comfortably do all the work to sow the rice seeds in 2 days, 1 day for clearing and 1 day for sowing. Manual weed control also is possible to some extend if the seeds are sown in lines.
23-June-2026
Rain didn't come as expected, hence seeds didn't germinate well, only in a few places it came up. So waiting for rain is of no use, sowing for rice is best done when rain is established well, especially when sowing soaked seeds. If sowing directly, it has to be under soil or it should be seedball and should be done in between April mid and May 1st, so that seeds come up with first rain, in this case it should be minimum 5-6 months duration crop so that they have enough time to recover from in between dry spells.
1-July-26
Got few good rains, hence started putting seeds again...Since grass was growing, had to cut the grass using spade and removed it. 2 women and 1 man worked. This time got some cowdung and mixed with seeds and just put one portion by portion. It was sticking to hand, hence workers added some more water. But the speed was less and also they were saying they are not getting a feel of how much to put. Ideally there should be 5-6 seeds in each portion. But the amount of seed used was more 1 kg of Chuvanna Modan seed was not suffice for the small field.
In the bigger one, Kasarkode 2kgs were used and since mixing with cowdung was taking more time, just put the seeds after making small channels with the sharp tool. Just putting the seeds they were covering it nicely. Both Kasarkode and Chuvanna Modan had been soaked in water for 24 hours and then used.
06-July-26
Chuvanna Modan didn't germinate well or some birds picked it. Actually it was not covered with soil, I thought, since it is inside cowdung, no covering is needed. But with rain cowdung easily washed away and seeds were out side. But couple of days before when I went, I could see seeds germinated in lots of places. So planning to put another seed here.
In 0.1 acre in lots of places it has germinated, but there are big gaps. Luckily balance seed was put in place together, this can be transplanted back.
