Organic tilled paddy - 1st season 2024

This year summer was very hot and usual summer rains didn't happen, 1st rain came on April 12nd and after that around 3 weeks delay and next rain came. After that it has been consistently raining now. Since I am completely rainfed now, wanted to utilise every rain, especially paddy has to be started with early rains. Traditionally it says, paddy has to be started in Aswathy (April 13 to 27th)  or Bharani njattuvela (April 27th to May 11th).

Bought 10Kgs of Uma seed from Kannannur rice mill of Sivadasan for 35/- per Kg. Also bought 2Kgs of green gram at 150/- per Kg, and 0.5Kgs of Sesame at 200/- perKg and also used some finger millet seeds from last year. All mixed well in a sack and then sown in the field after the tractor completed 1st round of rotovator tilling.

Also put a coir fence around the field, one labor was used and 10 bunches of coir was used at around 180/ rupees totally. Next two days there was heavy rain at the night, so left everything to nature, to see what happens.

May 14th, 2024

May 20,2024

can see green gram and paddy seedlings,both germinated well..could see weeds also coming up well, that is the next challenge

16-June-2024

green gram and sesame grows very well, rice germinated very well, but not able to compete with weeds. May be I have to get a variety which compete with weeds well and also can tolerate drought. 

16-July-2024

finally it is just sesame that is seen..surprisingly sesame just came above the seeds and they look quite heavily loaded, but not sure about the harvest since it may be raining when they mature

Starting of agriculture activities - traditional way

 According to our traditional agriculture system, Medam 1st - in Malayalam calendar is the starting of agriculture activities, this was on April 14th this year. Medam 1st is celebrated as Vishu in Kerala which is a festival along with farmers starts farming activities. Typically in Kerala climate, it would rain before Vishu festival and there is a saying 'വിഷു കഴിഞ്ഞാൽ വേനലില്ല ' meaning there is no summer after this festival. Also they say in Aswathy njattuvela which happens to be between April 13th to April 27th, and seeds sown in this duration never goes bad. Again there is a saying 'അശ്വതിയിലിട്ട വിത്തും ,ഭരണിയിലിട്ട മാങ്ങയും ,അച്ഛൻ വളർത്തിയ മക്കളും കേടാവില്ല ' which means seeds sown in Aswathy and mangoes put in Ceramic pot and children broughtup by father, never goes bad.

Also there is another auspicious day called Medam 10th, happened to be on April 23rd. Farmers starts planting crops on this day,and since rain would start soon, they have to just water it so that crops are alive till the rain and then they will take off.

Now a days with climate change, things never happens this way. This year it rained on April 12th, it was a reasonably good rain, but after that it hasn't rained so far in this region. 

Since earlier complete farming was rain dependent every rain was utilized so these calendars were really important. I do complete rainfed farming and hence these things are important but with climate change, it becomes more challenging.

May be with first rain, I could have planted some fodder grass slips and Vetiver slips to see if they come up well, but that has to be done on the next day.