Sesame on small plots

Sesame is traditionally planted in 'Atham Njattuvela' in Kerala, ie. between September 26-October 10th, started a bit late by October 3rd week, but soil was reasonably wet. Got some seeds and cleared grass in some patches using Fokin's hoe and made a line using the same hoe and then put seeds in line, between lines close to 0.75 feet distance is put.

In some places, ant had taken the seeds, later once again seed was put and then turmeric powder was put above this.

In this area, grass was very thick, after cutting with Scythe, just made strips clean of grass using Fokin's hoe and then made channel using Fokin's hoe and put seeds. The grass which is in the middle portion will be cut and controlled if they come up aggressively.

Rice farming -2nd crop - Manurathna variety

First crop gave me 46 para (around 460Kgs), that won't meet food requirement for an year, hence going for the 2nd crop. This time wanted to try a high yielding variety just to see its productivity, if its performance is OK then may continue. Heard about the new variety called Manurathna which is 95-99 days duration, red rice and high yielding. More details can be seen in KAU site.

http://www.kau.in/basic-page/varieties-released

October 13, 2020

This time, there is good rain, hence the field was wet, still had to release water from well. Puddled the field and since there was enough water, it got over in 1 hour 45 minutes, typically it takes 2 hour plus. Seed was kept in cowdung water for 24 hours and then in jute sack for 12 hours.

Had spread complete straw back into the field, it was a day's work for me

15th October-2020

Around 25Kgs of seed is sown...the same plastic sheet setup was used. Since there was water stagnant in the field, it had to be drained out.

19-October-2020

Seeds are germinating..

21-October-2020

Germination is OK, but some thing happened. Some people or animal stamped the area...not sure what happened. Normally peacocks and wild boars don't enter the field since it is muddy and walking for them is difficult.

17-December-2020

Some updates were missing...basically motor got burnt and it took 3 weeks to repair. Weeds grew every where and for transplanting also there was not enough water. Had some thinking if to ditch this season's crop. Later motor repaired and some additional labor was used for weeding and trying to recover it.

Here is the latest status.

Some areas were weeded using a rolling weeder and push-pull hoe.

6-Feb-2021

Crop is very weak and not much grains on them...also since there is big gap since there was not much tillering, peacocks and other big birds are walking between the plants and some plants are fallen

Lessons learnt

1. When workers come for sowing seeds, field should be dry to sow the seeds, otherwise they have to wait and that becomes their working hours

2. 25Kgs of seed looks to be on the higher side, may be just 20Kgs should be enough

3. Weeding has to be done at very early stage..when the weeds are few millimeters, then itself start the weeding. Row wise planting is always easy for weeding

4. Traditional seeds work much better when there is less water and less fertile soil