Paddy farming June 2012

For this season, I tilled the field even though in natural farming tilling is not done. After couple of failures without tilling, in this season I thought of doing tilling to control weeds and once I have sufficient mulch, planning to do no-till in the next season. Also in this season I had collected three traditional varieties of paddy namely - Chuvanna Modan, Kalladiaryan and Thavalakannan. In the above Chuvanna Modan and Kalladiaryan are upland rice, which is typically cultivated in the upland area where there won't be any standing water.Another variety is Vysakh which is a high yielding upland rice.

Since seeds were limited, I just dibbled the seeds at a distance of around 10cm. Dibbling was done using sickle and initially I had put 2 seeds, but later my helper told to put 5 or 6 seeds and I was little hesitant for it so went for 3 seeds at one point. This is the first time I am trying dibbling, so the lack of experience showed up. I was careful so that the opening made with sickle is not deep so that germination is good. Also earlier I had experienced with transplanting that if distance is more, weeds will come in the free space and it is difficult to control.

Even after all the precautions, what didn't work was bad germination and gap between plants became more because of no germination. Some lessons...

1. Sowing was little late and was done when the rain had actually started. From the earlier experience I had seen that when the rain is heavy, germination is bad. Typically farmers do sowing along with the first rains which is probably we should do

2. Number of seeds at one dibbling point should be more, may be 5 or 6 seeds. In this case at least one two atleast will germinate. Even if all germinate later removing is still OK, but if none comes at one point, the gap becomes more 

3. Be prepared for low germination and make a back up plan, by making a nursery so that at points where it does not germinate, plants can be transplanted

Here are some photos...

July 29,2012

Grass has grown in some places and overtook the paddy. I wanted to do weeding, but it looks it is little late since grass has grown thick, now pulling is not easy..and thorns on the touch-me-nots are strong and it hurts. So without cover crop, I shouldn't have tried this. Earlier I was thinking, if paddy grows well, then grass may not be a problem, but if there is a gap, grass will grow and they grow much better than paddy. In one side of the bund, there is a subabul tree and saplings of this tree is growing under this, very thickly. But in this place, paddy has grown above it, so it does not look like a problem, I would have used Subabul as a cover crop??

The two photos below are weeded by women and they make it like a ground, pulling and removing all the weeds. I did one part by myself just by cutting the tall grasses and asked them to do that way.

Aug 11, 2012

Sept 02, 2012

Rice has come over the weeds now..but still there are more gaps between the plants and hence peacock can be a threat since they can easily walk between the plants. Some of the plants started flowering

Sept 9, 2012

Coconut husk - water retention properties

For last 4 years, coconut leaves and husks are the only fertilisers given to my coconut trees and they are doing well. After dehusking is done, coconut husks are piled up and later I move them to the base of the trees. While moving the coconut husks in March (summer time), at the bottom of the pile some coconut husks were still wet. I was little surprised since during peak summer, the land is quite dry and except during watering time, moisture is hard to find. The coconut husks were piled during the rainy season, so wetness should be rain water retained all these time, or the husk was raw and it was still retaining the moisture. So spreading coconut husks is an effective way to increase water retention properties of soil.

Recently I was reading a book about the 'Karshakasree' winners and two of them had used waste of coconut husk very effectively. One was C.J.Skaria Pillai from Palakkad and he had bought some land in Nallepilly and found that land was quite dry and wind was very strong. He was looking for a solution to increase the water retention properties of the soil and tried the waste of coconut husk which comes after making coir. He spread it and used that place for vegetable cultivation and he got amazing results and then he bought this waste in large quantities and incorporated into soil after ploughing and also put some cow dung and land recovered well.

Another person is K.V.Gopi from Pathiriyad,Kannur. He had bought a land with rocky terrain since that was the cheapest and he could afford only that much. Luckily nearby there was a coir factory and its waste had piled up and he completely made use of it by bringing it and spreading it on the land. The land recovered remarkably well. At one point he had cultivated 'cheera' in this 3 acres of land and had 100Kgs of 'cheera' to sell every day.

Termites

Termites do a wonderful job in converting organic matter. During the summer they are active and within days dried leaves, husks, whole coconuts etc are eaten up. Without them decomposing organic matter will take long time. Some times they are seen eating some portion of the barks on the coconut trees, but so far hasn't damaged any trees. Here are some pictures from the farm...

When to cut weeds?

There is a saying..crops are sown by man while weeds are sown by god. If your crop is surrounded by weeds and starts blocking sunlight, the crop growth will be arrested. A matured weed plant produces hundreds of seeds. Once produced these seeds may get carried away by wind, rain water or may germinate in the same place under right conditions. Obviously to reduce the weed seed population, it is best to cut them before seeds set in. This way the weed population can be controlled effectively. Other sources of weed seeds are tilling, wind and rain water. If we avoid tilling, and mulch heavily, then seeds which typically comes with wind will remain mostly on surface and won't germinate. Also the rain water from other areas should not be allowed to flow to your field which will have many weed seeds.

Also it is better to time the weed cutting and mulching well advance before the rain recedes so that moisture can be retained. For e.g in Kerala, experts advice to mulch before the north-east monsoon so that the rain water from this monsoon can be well preserved.