Taro harvesting and seeding again

Had a small raised bed with few taro plants, it was transplanted when some taro plants were growing in Ginger area. Transplanting was done after they had grown a feet or so, but they came up well. Had applied compost once and piled up soil around them and mulched with cut green grass.

The harvest was decent, and after that raised bed was repaired a bit since soil had gone here and there after harvest. The mother seeds were put back along with small seeds which is not normally preferred for curry making. These seeds would come in the next rainy season, and cowpea is put on this bed. So underneath it has taro seeds and on the top there is cowpea which should fix nitrogen for the next taro crop. After this some light mulching was done using cut grass.

Not much tillering in no-till rice?

This year have been doing some experiments with no-till rice. One field is in the farm using Pureria as cover crop which had controlled all strong grasses and gave a clean field to start no-till rice. Had removed all the cut Pureria to one side and sown the pre-germinated rice seeds of an upland variety called 'Katta modan'. The density was more and there was good line spacing. But could see that there is no tillering for the rice. One reason could be that no-fertilizer and soil open to sun and rain, built fertility would have lost? When conventional fields are compared, they till the soil and all the grass and straw will be allowed to decompose and then transplanting starts. Even though field is plowed, it is made fertile and hence growth of rice plants is better.

In natural farming no-till field, even Fukuoka san recommended 600-900 pounds of well decomposed chicken manure per quarter acre. So this is some thing to be seriously considered. Also the field should be covered with mulch.

Turmeric Crop

This year tried a turmeric crop and it was doing well so thought of analyzing what went well. One thing is that soil where this was tried was reasonably deep after years of mulching and not disturbing much. Also in this patch, distance between fingers were almost a foot and this was suggested by worker, he always tell if there is good distance it is better.

Also after couple of months, this was weeded and compost was applied and soil put over this compost and then mulched with fodder grass which decomposes very slowly hence soil cover was there.

Happy Hill Rice

Even though I tried some seeds in March-April as soon as I had received it, knew that is not the actual season, so trying it with monsoon when the temperature is cool and ground is wet. The seeds received were not very healthy, lots of plants turn yellowish and die. But in one area, could get some harvest, so trying those seeds again, so they are happy hill rice grown in this climate being tried out again here.

12-October-2021

The seeds used were harvested in around August end 2021.

Have put around 130 seeds in grow bags, after soaking them in cowdung water for 24 hours. Soaking may have to be reduced to 12 hours, that is the typical practice, some where I thought it is 24 hours and kept it. After 3-4 days, rice seedlings are seen.

19-October-2021

Around 80 seedlings are growing, out of 130 seeds.

22-Oct-21

Transplanted the seedlings..1/2 seedlings in every 10cms. Also broadcasted some fenugreek seeds as a ground cover. It rained heavily at the night, so not sure, if fenugreek will germinate.

27-October-21

Spread some home made compost made out of green leaves, dried leaves and kitchen waste. Also applied some cowdung.

02-November-2021

Had applied very diluted home made fish amino acid 

05-November-2021

Applied cut leaves of mexican sunflower throughout to keep the soil covered and also applied some fresh cowdung slurry

12-November-21

Applied fresh indigenous cow's dung slurry twice. Also mulched with glyricedia leaves

18-November-2021

mulched using super napier grass cuttings and also applied some soil mixed with ash and applied cowdung slurry

24-November-2021

Applied cowdung slurry, bit home made compost..also broadcasted some moth beans seeds, these are low growing legume and its seed is used as food

27-Nov-21

05-December-2021

Flowering is almost complete...

21-December-21

Threat of birds,peacocks and chickens...put a plastic net...grains started turning yellow, stopped watering

27-December_21

To my surprise a chicken entered and started eating paddy, luckily she was spotted on time. I harvested a part of paddy immediately, some are still green.

11-January-2022

2nd harvest, one more portion is remaining which will be harvested after a week

No-till corn - small patch

Have been growing in small patches in backyard and with that experience wanted to try it in the farm in small area. To the extend possible, wanted to try it in minimum tillage way, hence cut the tall grass in the raised bed using Scythe and then cut it short to ground using brush cutter. This is the combination I am using, Scythe allows to cut the tall grasses easily but since it is heterogenous grass, cutting may be not be that neat, there the brush cutter helps. If there are millipedes, they will be hurt badly, so I just pick them move away before cutting. This can be done with a stick very easily.

I put a line using Homi hoe and put two seeds at 1 feet and covered it using the same tool, but germination was very poor. One is that if the moisture content is not good, germination will be bad and also could see that ants taking away seeds immediately after sowing.

Next time, made sure that there was enough moisture in the soil and also dipped seeds in turmeric powder paste and sown, most of the seeds germinated, was happy about that. A few places it didn't germinate, those places put the seeds once again. Finding that a uniform crop stand is a must to get good yield, so may have to put seeds couple of times, or worst case transplant to places where there is a gap. Also from previous experience, distance between corn plants should be large, at least 1 feet so that plants grow healthy. Now I am seeing, the planting distance really matters...SRI rice tells 1 feet distance, similarly lots more evidence on this..Fukuoka San also tells sparse seeding is good.

Mexican sunflower

Used to see Mexican Sunflower in Youtube videos and permaculture articles, where it is called as a Dynamic Accumulator. But never was there a mention from any local farmers or any one in the farming community. Happened to see them on road sides and started looking them closely and started reading more. Took some cuttings from road sides and planted at home and they were growing quite fast, so was impressed. Then thought of introducing them to farm, since any biomass generator and diversity addition is good for the farm.

This year planted them around newly planted saplings and also near the trenches. Recently planted 3 cuttings on the front yard where one chaya mansa tree had fallen from ant attack and we lost the shade in the front porch. Mexican sunflower cuttings grew in 4 months and brought back that shade. 

Showed this plant to my helper Palani and he said he has seen them in big bunches on road sides and went with him and collected lots of cuttings and planted around trenches and as shade for saplings.

Mexican sunflower planted to provide shade for the newly planted fig saplings

3 cuttings were planted 5 months back, now they are 12 feet tall and started flowering

Reviving soil with Mucuna - Video from https://www.accessagriculture.org/

I am not growing Mucuna, but this article gives some inputs from the video

 https://www.accessagriculture.org/reviving-soils-mucuna. 

Mucuna is a vigorous leguminous perennial creeper cover crop used in plantations. In Kerala it is seen in rubber plantations. It is not good for cattle, there are reports that it may kill cattle, if eaten in large quantities. Since it is perennial and vigorous creeper, once established all the weeds will be gone. When I was looking for perennial cover crops, this was one option for me. But since it may kill grazing animals, didn't prefer it, and went for Pureria. Even though both Mucuna and Pureria generates enormous amount of biomass, but never seen anyone using it in orchards. So when I saw Mucuna being used in West Africa for regenerating soil, I was amused.

The following scenarios are discussed in the video..

West africa has 2 rainy seasons, major rainy season from April through June and short rainy season from October through December. Farmers typically grow maize and casava with start of the rain. After maize is harvested casava continues and then casava is harvested. Some farmers do two maize crops and with erratic rains, they may not get a second harvest. Also since nothing is returned to soil, soil depletes and maize harvest declines. To regenerate soil some farmers plant mucuna in between maize when maize crop has completed 60 days, by this time pods would have formed. Planting is done between maize rows.

Maize is planted at 80cms distance between rows and 40cms within rows. 2 maize seeds are planted in one hole. Maize field will be weeded before planting Mucuna.60Kgs of Mucuna seeds are required per hectre. Every 40cms, two seeds will be dropped in the hole and covered. By the time maize is harvested Mucuna grows over maize and this continues till the end of the short rainy season. After this, thick layer of mulch decomposes in the summer. With first rain, they sow seeds of maize and some farmers do this without ploughing. If the soil is poor, they advise to sow Mucuna for 3 years and after that on alternate years.

Mucuna improves the soils and also gets rid of some difficult weeds. After the rain field with Mucuna remains, there is little run off and retains water, while field without Mucuna,water just runs off. Soils with Mucuna is soft and easy to work with rain, while the other fields become hard. Even without tilling planting becomes possible with Mucuna left over. Conventionally they harvest 10 bags of maize per hectre and with Mucuna it is 30 bags per hectre.Similarly for Casava, it is 30 bags of flour per hectre with Mucuna and 4-5 bags of flour without Mucuna

Here is the video which tells how they use Mucuna for regenerating soil.

https://www.accessagriculture.org/reviving-soils-mucuna

Conclusion

Since Mucuna grows very fast and fixes lots of nitrogen and generates lots of biomass, it is a good option to grow that as a cover crop after the harvest of the rice, this typically gives around 8 months of growth, considering a 4 month duration rice variety. If the mucuna is sown 1 month before harvest of rice, this can become 9 months. If we go for two crops, each with duration of 4 months, we can still grow it for 5 months. One problem is that seeds are not readily available.

Peahen mother

Couple of days back, laborers were harvesting coconuts and I was helping them to identify trees. In one area there were some logs piled up and I thought spreading them in the free time. I threw them here and there so that they decompose and become part of the soil. When I threw one log to the pureria covered ground, could see one dried coconut near to that. 

I thought of picking it up and moved towards it and as I approached closer, to my surprise it was a peacock sitting with its eggs. She didn't even looked at me and was not scared, normally they fly off when we approach them, in this case I was just few feets away from it. Later laborers came and harvested coconuts and the falling sound also didn't scare her. I didn't take photos so that it is not disturbed again. I could see the real will power of a mother bird, even though I had seen some such incidence in the social media, this was a unique experience to me.

Some tribal agriculture details - Attappadi,Kerala

Recently attended a webinar about tribal agriculture of Attapadi a hilly area in Kerala. This happened on farmer's day and one outstanding farmer called Unnikrishnan was honored in this meeting. Later collected his phone number and talked to him. Thought of sharing some informations collected from him..

He is from tribal community in Attapadi and stays in the same area. He was earlier working in Navy and took retirement to take care of his family and got into full time farming. He grows rice, millets and vegetables. New fallow areas are leased on every year and he does cultivation, idea is to make sure that there are no fallow areas and encourages people to get into farming. Lots of people leave the farm in fallow and take up other works and also depend on government supplied ration and ultimately they become malnourished.

Rice grown is a traditional variety which is used in that locality but there is no name for it. It is a 6 months duration crop and 4kgs sown gives a yield of 300Kgs. It reaches chest height and grows with many tillers. Generally they will be sown sparsely and will be intercropped with sunflower so that there will be less pest attack. Sunflower seed will be used minimally so that they don't interfere with rice.

On the buds, they grow a local variety pumpkin which is a small fruit variety and this makes sure that bunds are weed free.

Millets are cultivated and he says, right now they have 300Kgs of finger millets on stock. Tribal people typically cultivate for their own food, selling is the last choice for them. There are wild animal and birds attack, but they think that they are growing food for them and wild animals and birds. They see it as a good sign, if wild animals come and eat, so that next year they will have a better crop. This is an amazing way of living together with nature.

He asked me to visit them with family so that we can understand it better....

Shade for newly planted saplings

I have planted many fruit tree saplings on this monsoon season. There won't be any irrigation as of now in the farm for them. So planning to grow mexican sunflower cuttings nearby to each saplings. Typically around 2-3 feet away from the saplings and in opposite direction, so that mulching can be still done without much disturbance.

Still have to get more cuttings of mexican sunflower, I can see them growing on road sides, have to cut and take them. If they grow and provide shade, I am thinking saplings will survive the summer.

Mexican sunflower cuttings around Israel fig, already growing

Around sweet orange from Culcutta

4-October-2021

17-November-2021

Fodder grass

My neighbor farm has cows and they grow fodder grasses. Seeing that tall grasses, I enquired the details and it looks like it matures in around 3 months and after that it can be cut in every 2 months. One grass cut would be enough food for a cows for a day. Since it creates so much biomass, thought of growing some on an experimental basis. The neighbour grows super napier grass which is a hybrid variety and I can see some other fodder grasses growing in some parts of the farm, don't know its name. One thing I noticed was that, it decomposes slowly and hence controls weeds effectively.

I got some cuttings from the neighbor farm and planted it here and there. Also got some seeds, and sown them.

Here are some pictures ...around 1 month old...

Planting lots of mango trees

On this monsoon trying to plant lots more mango trees in unused spaces. Mainly lots of traditional mangoes which does not require much attention. Bought around 55 mango saplings, all grafted and along with planted 3 kolumbu saplings from seeds, so far totally 58 trees.

The varieties bought were - Kolumbu - 30, Kalapadi - 10, Karpooram -3, Kotturkonam - 4, Natasala - 4,Olor - 2,Nambiar - 1,Kottaparamban - 1. Most of these are bought from Rayirath Gardens, Pattikkad, Thrissur and South Indian Agri farm, Thrissur.

Some of the planted mangoes..

Kolumbu Mango from seeds

I keep hearing that some mango varieties produce the same type fruits even grown from seeds, first heard this from facebook group 'nadan mavukal' (traditional mangoes).

People say Kolumbu,Chandrakkaran, Moovandan etc... produce same type fruits. Trying Kolumbu from seeds this time.

Saplings are 1 year old, seeds from my farm itself, the smaller Kolumbu mango tree.

Cultivation in neighborhood area

When Corona lockdown started, my neighbor had given some land for me to cultivate. I had started banana, brinjal,chinese potato etc...In summer nothing much happened since watering is always a problem. So with the rain again I have started again. Also I make compost with kitchen waste and dried leaves, green grass etc...right now one pile is almost ready and another will be ready in two months...

Some photos...

This pile is getting ready

This is ready for use..will be covering it with plastic sheet so that rain and sun does not fall on it directly.

Ash guard, started with first rains, so they are getting established before heavy rains

Ash guard

Pumpkin

Small taro, this is not disturbed by wild pigs...so no protection given

Small taro and ginger - sunhemp also sown

Blue taro - favorite of wild pigs - hence covered with bamboo and other thorny branches

Sugar cane plant - survived summer

Some banana plants didn't survive summer, this variety is 'Kumbha vazha' and thrive on rainy season and matures early

Cow pea

Cucumber 

Tomato brinjal - doing very well, survived summer without any issue

Sunhemp sown in one bed

14-August-2021

Chinese poatoe - applied cowdung once and compost couple of times

Planted new banana in places where the earlier one was damaged

Lady's finger and chilly plant..ladies finger was seeded 3 times since initially it didn't germinate

Brinjal - steady harvest for 2nd year...

Super napier grass seeds germinating

Super napier grass and vetiver grass

This is a lady's finger gifted by a neighbor grand mother few years back...yields well

After some time, branches comes and on each branch there are fruits

New compost pile

Compost pile is almost ready