Correct mulching method for weed control - Bhaskar Save's way of farming

I am reading Vision of Natural farming by Bharat Mansata about Bhaskar Save's way of farming. Mulching method followed by Bhaskar Save..

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Weeds cut from a plot of 100 sq.ft will never provide a thick enough layer to fully cover entire 100 sq. ft. It may be adequate for 40 sq. ft or for 25 sq ft or perhaps just 10 sq.ft, depending on density of weed growth.If sunlight penetrates through a layer of mulch that is too thin (less than 3 inches), weeds may grow back vigorously again.More over, with light mulching, cut weeds will not come in close, direct contact with the soil, to enable the soil organisms to do their work of decomposition.In such condition weeds will just dry up in air,without getting integrated in the soil as humus (My opinion about this statement is that it will happen, but may take more time??)

Thus, if 25 sqft is the area that can be adequately mulched, at least 3 to 4 inches thick, with the weeds from 100 sqft that is what the farmer should stick to, unless additional biomass can be obtained from an external source.The fresh weed growth from balance 75 sqft would again need to be mulched on a quarter of that area.....

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This made sense to me, since in my paddy field the mulching was not sufficient and weeds growth were more. If I had focussed on a smaller area from grass from other areas and slowly convert the whole area, it would have been much better.

Recently I made some raised beds and kept on mulching them with weeds from nearby places, walkways and they are building up nicely. If everything goes well, I may plant paddy on these raised beds.

Making friends with dogs

This is not exactly farming related..but some experience in dealing with dogs on the way to my farm. It has been 3 years since I bought the farm, but since last year after moving to Palakkad,Kerala my visits are more frequent, at least 2-3 days in a week. Earlier it was once in 2/3 months and that time I used to take my sister's car and never realised the issues with dog.

On the first day I got down from the bus and started walking towards the farm and had a big-shopper (kind of a bag made out of cloth) with me with my lunch/water. A pomeranian came barking at me and it was really ferocious, I some how defended with my bag and I came to know that I got some extra courage to deal with the situation. This house had 3 pomeranians and two were tied but one was roaming around freely, there was no one at the house and they had no gates, but there is a fencing for the compound. I was really angry that they don't tie the dogs, but there was no one to shout at. On the way back, I carried a stick to defend the dogs. The same dog again came barking at me and but since I had the stick, it didn't come that close. The owner of the dog were there, I complained to him about the dog and he said, it does not bite,just barks. I had a heated argument with him and he asked me, even if he ties the dog, there are more on the road, so it is not useful. But strongly argued to him he should take care of his dogs.

Later I realised that there are more dogs on the way. There is one black dog which is very old but will bark at me and he does not come out of his boundary so I was not much bothered at him. Then I found another two dogs one black and white pomeranian another local variety and both come out of their boundary and comes directly at me barking. Then there is one more old dog which also does not come out of his house, even though there is no gate for that compound also. All this made my life miserable and I carry a stick and some day they come barking at me and I defend them with sticks. The white pomeranian comes running at me and I  became very scared. I also heard that the same dog had bitten one person a month back. 

But with the stick I was able to defend them nicely. 6-7 months passed and still dogs didn't get familiar with me or since I carry the stick they were always in the hostile mood. I again had some arguments with the owner of the white pomeranian and once with his wife. Some people started making fun of me, seeing me carrying the stick.

Later a friend told me he used to throw bread pieces to calm down the stray dogs which comes attacking. I thought of trying this and bought one packet of  'Sun Feast' brand biscuit which comes at 3 rupees. I gave one biscuit to the black old dog and it ate that, next day onwards it stopped barking at me. It started coming to me wagging his tail for biscuits. White pomeranian also got adjusted to my biscuits now they don't even bark at me. There is one reddish colour dog which now comes running on seeing me and some time water drips from its mouth on seeing me at thought of biscuits. Finally I have some good friends and some time some escort me to the bus stop. But still carry the biscuits and give them one each and even if I find some new dogs I throw some biscuits and my mind has calmed down a lot while walking to my farm. The owner of the pomeranian started smiling again at me which he had stopped after I had the argument with him.

Farmers are aware of issues with pesticides/herbicides !!!!

Had a chat with the driver of the tractor who had come for ploughing my field. He may be around 25 years old and has completed his ITI degree in Mehcanical branch. He is also a farmer and has around 4 acres of paddy field. He mentioned to me if I am going to plant without puddling, then weeds may be more and herbicides may have to be used. Just out of curiosity I asked him if they uses herbicides. He uses herbicides but there is one portion they keep it for their own use and there they don't apply herbicides and apply only cow dung as manure. I was shocked to hear this and had heard about such stories but didn't know it happens in palakkad,kerala.

I just told him so you are taking care of your health and your families health and not worried about others health, he was just smiling and didn't answer my question. Once the peak season is over, he does not have job for the rest of the year. His house is to be rennovated and need money for his sister's marriage. So it looks like when there is pressure for them, they don't think about the society.

Or what could be the reason why people are not bothered about other's health and how this attitude can be changed?

Controlling weeds - Soorya Narayana's style

Soorya Narayanan is a natural farmer from Ottapalam,Palakkad,Kerala. He has 15 acres of land and grows coconut,banana,paddy and recently rubber. He does not irrigate his farm and also does not apply any animal manure. He had applied some chicken manure earlier, but not now a days. Couple of years back, he had received Kerala government's 'Kera Kesari' award for the best coconut farmer.

He does not grow any legumes between the coconut trees and just allows the grass to grow naturally. Instead of cutting the grass, he thrashes it with a long stick, he says this is more effective/easy than cutting the weeds. This is how he became a natural farmer..

He was a chemical farmer earlier and his own observations made him to a natural farmer. He found that using chemicals yield was not sufficient, land fertility was reducing and also he was under loss. So he left the land without doing anything and he was doing some other job to make a living. After two years, grass was growing tall after the rains. He wanted to cut and clean the grass, but getting labour was difficult he just thought of thrashing it with a stick. He found this useful and grass was not growing back since rain had stopped and summer was approaching. Next summer was a severe one and while the trees in the nearby farms were affected, his trees were still green. The thrashed grass retained moisture well and it was helping the trees. He really understood the importance of mulching and for him this thrashing was quite an easy task. He also left all the coconut leaves in the farm and trees started yielding well and he was chosen as the best coconut farmer for that year.

Paddy farming - Monsoon 2010

I started the paddy in my 0.6 acres of land. For two years nothing was done on this plot and different types of grass was growing thick, I got it cleared and wanted to do tilling to start with. At some points where there was a cover of dried grass not much grass was there. My plan was to start the paddy after tilling and once the paddy is established avoid tilling in the next cycle onwards. But finally I couldn't get a tiller, hence just cleaned the area with women laborers who cut and cleaned the grass. Even the dried grass was completely removed from the site and left on the sides. One area was prepared with a spade and sown the paddy seeds for transplanting.Transplanted 10 days old paddy, transplanting was tried out since grass were growing at fast rate and hence to give paddy some advantage compared to the grass.

By the time of transplanting grass was already thick and hence just cleared the grass where I had to plant the paddy. This was done in straight line and at 1 feet distance,but most of the places it became close to 1.5 feet, which was a mistake. I just cut and mulched the grass surrounding, it was labor intensive. I completed the
transplanting and after 2 weeks when I visited, the grass was too thick and was completely covering the paddy. I was little disappointed but didn't want to leave it at that point. Again cut and mulched the grass and had to spend long hours of effort for this. If I had tilled, I am sure, paddy would have established first and
by the time grass grows back.

Even after cutting and mulching grass grows very quickly back and rate of growth of grass is greater than paddy and grass easily dominate paddy.

As it stands paddy farming in grass is a challenge..obviously if it can be done easily people would have adopted it in large numbers. The total effort of planting the paddy and cutting the grass and mulching was 25 person days (8 hours a day). But if I had tilled and then planted, it would have been over with 7 or 8 person days.

I am not going to leave my no-till paddy at this point, but will continue with my experiments in a small area (0.2 acres) of the land and will go for tilling in the rest of the area as of now. I also wanted to try some tall varieties of paddy which can compete with grass.

Have a look at the pictures..

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/nandakumarpalaparambil/PaddyfarmingJune2010#



Here are some inputs from different people..mainly from Fukuoka mailing list


Kumaraswamy
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Grass which is growing in the paddy field is of rice family (monocot) only. It will be very difficult to establish the rice in it. Grass is already learned to grow in your field. But not rice. So it dominating. First you establish the cover crop (example: Black eyed pea (Malayalam : Dolichos catjang, Kannada: alasandi, Marati: Chavali, Hindi: Lobia) which is grow by dominating the existing grass. Complete the many cycles of such a cover crop till gross may get week. The selection of cover crop is very imported. It should grow by dominating existing grass and must be friend of rice. Any of locally available legume family will do best for rice and dominate the grass. Once legumes dominates in the field then it's ready for rice sowing. Either by
seed ball or transplanting. At transplanting time strong legume should be old age and week. The cover crop would cut and mulch the field. You can sow rice with any of the mild legume like methi or clover type. I have shared some of the photos which shows the legumes in grass or grass family plant.
http://picasaweb.google.com/kadakolla/LegumesInGrass#


Tom Gibson
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This is good but if the grass is a type with a running root system you
are going to get much faster results by tilling. Mulch from just growing
a cover crop and mowing it probably wouldn't be an effective method of
suppressing this grass which apparently is very vigorous. You would need
something besides mulch to blanket the ground. If you have access to
large amounts of cardboard that would reduce the mass of organic matter
needed dramatically. Newspaper up to 40 sheets thick would also work.
Need to put the layers down so they are interlocking or the grass will
push up through the cracks.

How I started my experiments?

As the job became boring, thoughts about an early retirement came up. Also thought that there is no point in struggling again to make more money. Buying some land and doing farming became an attraction. May be because of the village background with which I was brought up. Even though we were not farmers, in the village where I was born and brought up, farming was all there, with a river flowing nearby and long stretch of paddy fields. The road to our school had both sides paddy fields,but now it is all gone houses came on both sides.

During one of the discussions, one friend  mentioned about reading an article about organic farming that came in a daily. This article described that farming like a forest approach is the best way to do and forest is the most fertile land. He also mentioned about the name of the author as Dayal. Searched in the internet and got some references about him and left the topic there.

One day reading the malayalam daily manorama came across the book 'Urvarathayude Sangeetham' (Song of Fertility) by K.V.Dayal in 'pusthaka parichayam' section of a malayalam daily. In the next trip to trichur checked this book in DC books, current and another number of books stalls but could not get it, again searched for this book in the next couple of visits without much luck. Once again while searching found out his phone number in one site (think it is OFAI..) and called him. He was happy to hear my interests and asked the address and promised to send one copy and later send the money. This kind of behaviour from one of the author of the book was quite new to me, so felt very happy about it.

Then came the book..and sent him the money by MO. It was an inspiring book and got some good basics of natural/organic farming, read the book again and there was mention of Masanobu Fukuoka, Dhabholkar...etc.. and also the publisher of the book was Altermedia located in trichur. Went to this book stall once and could get One straw revolution (Otta Vaikkol Viplavam)...and the journey was steady now. Subsequently read, Natural Farming - theory and practice, Back to Nature etc...and became a fan of Masanobu Fukuoka. Subscibed yahoo mailing list and got guidance/questions clarified from many people all around the world and it was interesting. Read Dhabolka'r - plenty for all and got very good insight about science behind the natural farming. Came to know about Subash Palekar's zero budget farming and got his three books on the subject and it gave a very good idea about multicropping, mulching and about Jeewamritha and the book was quite inspiring.

There was a list of farmer's in Urvarathayude Sangeetham and visited Iyyunni chettan's farm with father-in-law. Iyynni chettan is in his 70's and came from a big farmer's family. He had done his Bachelor of  Science degree from Christ College Irinjalakuda and he didn't look for any job rather started looking after his family farm. This is a natural farm and does not use any animal manure and the yield of the coconut trees were very good..then onwards it was visiting farms, talking to farmers and then reading farming books..and started looking for the land in Palakkad.

After talking to many people who is on the similar path, two types of people were found. One set of people who is completely into farming and wanted to make a living out of farming and live like farmers, these are people who is very clear in their thinking. Other set of people have some backup income/activities which will substitute  their income from farming. After discussions with many people, general opinion was making a living from farming was difficult, and to completely enjoy farming, we have to live/work like a farmer. I was not confident about this since even my family had adjusted to city life. So decided to do farming as part time and became partner of a design service company with one of my class mate.