Making seedballs

Fukuoka san suggested to make seedballs and then sow and hence seeds won't be eaten by birds, ants etc..I had tried seedballs couple of times, but it was not successful, basically it was time consuming to roll individual seeds.

This time tried the following method, whether it really works out will be known after a while after sowing.

I took some mud blocks from the white ant hills, since I didn't like the idea of taking mud after digging the place. These hills are there in the farm in some places and breaking some are not that difficult. These mud blocks were placed in a waste cloth and then hammered so that it is powdered. This powder is very fine powder, in between if some bigger blocks are there, it will be taken out and again hammered for making fine powder.

I first tried with rice seeds. These seeds were kept in basin and then powdered soil was sprayed on the seeds and little bit was added and then mixed well. Slowly added more soil and then added water and mixing was continued. Each time soil added should be mixed thoroughly with just enough water so that   soil gets deposited on the seeds. Once I poured more water it all started sticking together instead of remaining as individual seeds. I just left it to dry for some time, and then separated individual seeds by just pressing the big blocks with hand.

One disadvantage of this method is that the balls are not very big..they just have a small coating of mud on them, so not sure if they will be effective. Will have to be tried out in the field.Tried the same method with ragi (finger millet) also, which is very tiny seeds.

Some photos..

Rice seed balls - above 5 pictures

Finger millet seed balls - above 2 pictures

I tried the same thing with Cowpea, but it didn't work out. First I soaked the cowpea seeds and later realised, they absorb water very quickly, later while mixing with soil powder, its external cover was getting removed, and also since the seed is smooth, the soil does not stick well.

Sesame Seeds

This method worked perfectly fine with sesame seeds. I was little apprehensive about the normal method of mixing sesame seeds with soil and then rolling balls, since seeds are too small and also there more chance of having more than one seed in a ball which is not desirable for sesame cultivation, it is even OK for paddy and finger millet.

While making sesame seedballs, I slightly modified the method as suggested by 'Milan Broz ' in the following discussion - http://www.permies.com/t/17855/fukuoka/Seed-ball-failure. In this method water was sprinkled and mixed the seeds first, so that all seeds are wet. The seed used in this case was Clover which is much smaller than Sesame seeds. This method worked better for me in Sesame case, since completely soaking the seeds, was not working out. There are some soil particles which is not stick to the seed ball, I can even sieve it using the following tool. This was used in the kitchen for sieving the rice powder and I used this to sieve the soil after hammering the soil in a cloth and this gives very fine soil powder.

Crimping tall grass

After one part of the monsoon is over, the farm is full of grass. In some places they have grown taller than me. Today I was cutting the grass on the walking path by using the hond string cutter. In one place while cutting the grass, the tall grasses were standing all around, it was little scary. It was taller than me, ie. taller than 5feet 3 inches. I had seen videos about roller crimper for controlling cover crops and was thinking that kind of equipment will be useful here. Cutting that grass is laborious even using the string cutter. So I took one big stick (stem of coconut leaf) and used its stem to press the grass. To my surprise the tall grasses fell down easily and I could do it quite fast. But this is possible only for certain grasses which after falling does not getup and grow. There are some grasses which will grow back easily.

But if we grow a tall cover crop, then pressing them with this kind of tool is possible, once they mature. In organic no-till we can find many videos of roller-crimper and walk behind roller-crimper which does the same purpose. But I felt I was able to achieve the same thing with this thick stick. Here are some photos...

An update....a week later when I visited this area, found that the grass is standing at half height..they had fallen, but came back and growing again..if the grass had already turned yellow, then it wouldn't have got up, but by this time seed also would be there and hence they will come back in the next season. So some thrashing also will be required to keep them down..so just this method of folding alone won't be enough.

Fertilization in Natural farming

Generally people think that there is no need of any fertiliser in natural farming. Fukuoka san talks about fertilization in his book, natural way of farming. In the chapter 'Rice and Winter Grain' under the sub-heading ' Direct Seeding, No-Tillage Barley/Rice Succession with Green Manure Cover' there is a topic called Fertilization and the book reads as follows..

"Following the rice harvest, spread 650-900 pounds of chicken manure per quarter acre either before or after returning the rice straw to the fields. An additional 200 pounds may be added in late February as a topdressing during barley heading stage.

After the barley harvest, manure again for the rice. When high yields have been collected, spread 450-900 pounds of dried chicken manure before or after returning the barley straw to the field. Fresh manure should not be used here as this can harm the rice seedlings. A later application is generally not needed, but a small amount (200-450 pounds) of chicken manure may be added early during the heading stage, preferably the 24th day of heading. This may of course be decomposed human or animal wastes or even wood ashes".

So there is fertilization done in natural farming, but it is much less effort in just scattering in chicken manure. May be this was not considered as fertilizer, rather just a decomposing agent for straw. So whoever gets into natural farming should observe these facts very closely, before concluding that no fertiliser is required for natural farming.

Finger millet among weeds

These are not great discoveries, but minor observations while doing hands on farming which is part of my learning.

Today I was weeding my rice field. Once the weeds take over the field it is not easy to control them, I just want to make sure that they don't block sunlight to the rice plants, I don't have any objection in weeds coming in rice field. But the weeds were growing above the rice in some places. Weeds are so adjusted with their environment that they come back and outgrow the rice. The weeds are growing in the same field for years and they are well adjusted to the environment, but rice is a first timer and struggles. But the variety which I cultivate this time do much better and  has reached a height of 3 feets.

So I am in constant lookout for solutions on how to compete with grass.In the middle of the grass, there was a finger millet plant standing like a solution. Last year I had cultivated finger millet in that area and some seeds would have fallen and couple of plants had come out. All the three plants I saw had grown taller than the grass and that also with the same time as the rice, both would have germinated at the same time. It looks like, the rate of growth of finger millet is greater than grass and the rice plants. It had reached close to 3.5 feets and was standing high among the weeds. It may be too early to conclude, but the growth of this finger millet is promising and gives an option to compete with grass. There is so much unpredictability in the agriculture, so with my limited experience if I can replicate the same thing again...that is all the finger millet plants can outgrow the weeds...Here are some photos....

Growing Happy Hill Rice

I had got some seeds of happy hill rice which Fukuoka San had developed in his field.  

Fukuoka had invented and registered three varieties of rice. 

Fukuoka 1 gou(Fukuoka No.1)-fast growing,

Fukuoka 2 gou(No.2)-late growing,

Fukuoka mochi 3 gou(glutinous No.3).

There are not much information available on this, but it is said to have wild strains in it. In this interview 'My natural way of farming is the sensible one'' by Vithal C Nadkarni 

(https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/soc.culture.indian/G_xO_gPRBBc) Fukuoka says "It's called "Happy Hill" after my surname. The mother stock of this noble rice came from Assam and the father stock from Japan. It took me eight years to get this rice to yield. It's the world's most productive strain of rice, providing on an average more than 200 grains per pod, which is twice that of normal yields in Japan".

24-December-2020

Some information about happy hill rice from a Japanese website which sells these seeds

https://noguchiseed.com/hanbai/products/detail/158 

Happy Hill (Uruchi)

Immediately after the end of the war, Masanobu Fukuoka fixed it in 1986 by crossing a long culm multi-grain mochi variety brought back from the hinterland of Burma by a Japanese Hoju type variety.

Super high-yielding rice cultivated by the late Masanobu Fukuoka, a charismatic natural farmer. The grass is upright and resembles foxtail millet. Delicious for a high harvest. However, since it is late-maturing, it is not suitable for cold regions such as Hokkaido and Tohoku where winter is early. Suitable for west of Kanto. It is said to be suitable not only for paddy fields but also for land fields. * Note: This variety is prone to rice scab, so it is not suitable for commercial cultivation for shipping. Please note that.

Rice rice. For this species, Isao Noguchi, who was invited to Ehime at the Centennial of Masanobu Fukuoka's birth, proliferated the seed paddy received from his bereaved family by the Noguchi seedling staff. The name of Happy Hill is a literal translation of "Fukuoka".

Strong culm and strong against lodging. It has strong drought resistance, and some are close to upland rice. Strong against weeds. It is suitable for no-tillage, fertilizer-free, and pesticide-free natural cultivation because it exhibits its characteristics in fields with poor conditions. When cultivated with high fertilizer, the yield is extremely high and it is possible to reach 10a1t or more. (300-400 seeds per ear grow, and 200-250 seeds grow on average. (Keep the number of stems per square meter at 200-300). Since many late-maturing species grow into large stocks, 40-45 cm between rows and stocks. It is best to plant one or two plants at the same position. It can be cultivated at intervals of 30 cm, even with 3 to 4 plants.

Seed life at room temperature, it is as short as one year. It can be stored in a cool and dark place for several years.

Dormancy is absent. (Therefore, it may germinate in the rain during fruiting)

Some seeds were sent by one Japanese friend who had been cultivating this for some time. He had told that the seeds are weak, because of bad weather. 

I was in a dilemma initially how to go about cultivating this precious seeds. So shared it with other three friends who were interested in Fukuoka natural farming. Initially I was thinking to put it in some flower pots, so that I can take care of it more. But during my absence, we were sure our dog will take care of it, so dropped that plan. I made some small fencing in the front yard using glyericedia sticks and then put the seeds after making a small raised bed and also put some dried cow dung. Since the seed quantity was less, and since the Japanese friend had told that the seeds were weak, I wanted to give some boosting to the seeds. The germination was poor, and plants looked weak at the beginning. Grass started coming, but being in the front yard, I could pull out and mulch with them as and when required. I also put some fresh cow dung slurry couple of times and at a later point, put horse gram also. But horse gram was growing thick, so finally had to pull out and mulch  with them. 

Even though initially it was weak, it was better at the later stages. Couple of saplings didn't survive. But to my surprise it started flowering on 52nd day (less than 2 months). Also there were no tillers seen, so this looks to be the fast growing variety and this matches with the description which my Japanese friend had given, it reaches a height of 20 inches.

Here are some photos...Actually I had created a raised bed, may be for rice, it may be better to have bunds on 4 sides and keep it little low and allow some water to be there. In Natural Farming book, Fukuoka san explains that during heading stage, there should be more water for rice. I will be continuing with my experiments, in the next season with the improvements. But I am still looking for the variety Fukuoka 2 gou which grows tall and also has more grains on it. Now there is a threat of birds, rats, but I hope my dog Bruno will take care of chasing them away !!!.

Harvest

Initial stages of natural farming

Masanobu Fukuoka wrote 'One Straw Revolution' is written after long years of research and hence each sentence contains lot of wisdom. In the chapter 'Farming Among Weeds' there is a sentence which says...


In making the transition to this kind of farming, some weeding,
composting or pruning may be necessary at first, but these measures
should be gradually reduced each year. Ultimately, it is not the growing
technique which is the most important factor, but rather the state of mind
of the farmer.

When I started banana cultivation, I thought after planting the suckers, just cutting and mulching with grass around will give good yield. But the plants didn't show any growth at all. Developing cover crop with cow pea didn't show any success.

Later I came to observe that, farmers apply cow dung, chicken manure etc at the base of banana while planting itself and it has real effect on the growth. I felt Fukuoka also supports this at the initial stages , weeding, composting etc are required at the beginning, but later after establishing cover crops, and also after many cycles of legume cultivation, applying manure can be avoided since by the time fertility of soil would have improved and just mulching with plant waste should be good enough. Especially in Banana, the trunk, leaves etc provides lot of mulching material.

Cheruvayal Raman - Conservator of traditional paddy varieties

This is about Cheruvayal Raman from Wayanad, Kerala who conserves 33 varieties of traditional paddy varieties. This story came in Kerala Karshakan, Karshakan and I had met him and also talked to him couple of times, not visited his farm yet.


There were 120 varieties cultivated in Wayanad earlier, after green revolution farmers changed to a few varieties.

He is 63 years old and cultivates the following 33 varieties paddy in organic way.

Chennellu, KanniChennellu, Chettuveliyan, Marathondi, Chembakam, Chenthadi, VellaChenthadi, Mundakan, ChennalThondi, Chomala, Velumpala, Atukkan, Kothandan, Gandhakasala, Kayama, UruniKayama, Jeerakasala, Palthondi, Onamottan, Onachanna, Kotuveliyan, Palthondi-Vella, Cheriyakuruva, Thavalakannan, Kalladiaryan, Okkapuncha, ThonnuramThondi, ThonnuramPuncha, Navara, PunnadanThondi, Karuthan, Kurumbali, Palveliyan

31 varieties are cultivated in 5 cents, Jeerakasala in 25 cents and Marathondi in 3 acres. Marathondi is cultivated for own use and for selling which is a tasty rice.

Some matures in 90 days to 7-8 months of maturity. The varieties in Kalladiaryan, Thavalakannan, PunnatanThondi, Onamottan can withstand drought.

He cultivates all these varieties in organic way, and he says they are resistance to diseases and hence pesticides are not used.


His address - Raman, Cheruvayal, Kammana P.O, Mananthavadi, Wayanad, Phone - 9947796775, 9947222180