Peanut,finger millet and sesame - 2nd crop season 2016

This year south-west monsoon was very bad...so not trying rice farming, thought of trying some thing which needs less water..Trying out peanut, finger millet and sesame...no experience with these, so just trying ...

Straw from previous rice crop was completely spread and then got a tractor with rotovator attachment and tilled it.

8-Oct-2016

23-Oct-2016
Some peanuts which I had put it initially started germinating and growing...Made a channel using sharp tool and then put seeds and then using the tool with tooths, closed the channel. But it was time consuming and lot of effort, so finally broadcasted the seeds and then using the tooth tool put some mud here and there.

4-Dec-2016

Along with sesame and finger millet, lot of rice seedlings also came up...retained all of them as it is...

8-Jan-2017

Sesame came up in some places, germination was not uniform, mostly since I didn't till after sowing, lot of seeds were taken by ants or didn't germinate.

Rice is struggling...

Touchme not came up in some places and they formed a cover....they are nitrogen fixing type, but it looks to be an indication that fertility is not good.

Finger millet also is very weak...and not uniform

In sesame, the plants which came up is doing well...

23-January-2017

Finger millet..very weak plants, some harvest is there.....

Starting no-till on a weed free field

Have been experimenting with no-till on a field. Since complete rotation for an year and right crops are not working, wanted to do no-till on a weedy field. In Fukuoka's case he had a complete rotation in place and there will be overlap between crops, like after rice, barley/wheat would be starting. But practically if there is a break in the circle, not sure how he was handling it. For e.g, due to some reason he could not sow wheat at the stage of the harvesting rice...

Anyway in my case, I am doing no-till, but uses Honda brush cutter and scythe for cutting weeds. While experimenting I found that if long grass is cut and kept aside by using Scythe and then field is cleared with Honda brush cutter then field is relatively weed free. At this time, we can sow the crop and then cover it by using cut grass with immediate irrigation or if it rains, well and good.

Another option to control the weeds to next level, after cutting and clearing using brush cutter, irrigate the field and allow the weeds to germinate and then once again clear using brush cutter using string. Using string, we can complete the task of clearing the field when the weeds are small..this way all the surface weeds would have exhausted and we get a weed free field to start with.