Successful Fukuoka style no-till farms - Some examples

Masanobu Fukuoka had practiced no-till farming for rice/wheat/barley for many years and he was getting excellent yield. His system was maintaining clover as cover crop along with grain for weed control and broadcasting grain seeds over the existing crop. This is the most simple and less effort method of grain farming, but people who tried can tell that it is not easy. The main problem will be in weed control and also finding the right cover crop, equivalent to clover is another task. 

I have seen some people trying no-till grain farming, but majority of them has failed.  A few exceptions are - Raju Titus of M.P, Shyam Shrestha of Sunrise farm, Nepal, Krishna of Solitude farm and another French blog

Here is the link of Raju Titus blog and photos of no-till rice/wheat can be seen here.

rishikheti.blogspot.com
https://picasaweb.google.com/104446847230945407735/NATURALWHEATGROWINGWITHTREES20082009?noredirect=1#

Raju Titus does not use any specific ground cover, but uses local grass itself as ground cover. People visited his farm says, the soil is very fertile and no-tilling for years has reduced weed pressure a lot. So my feeling is that this may not be easily adapted for a new comer, he has to work his own.

Another example is that of Shyam Shrestha of Sunrise farm, Nepal. I had talked to Shyam Shrestha last year and they still do no-till farming.

Their method can be seen in the following link, since it is detailed I am not describing it again.

http://ebookbrowse.com/3-no-till-pdf-d324006369

The complete book can be downloaded from http://permaculture.org.au/2010/01/06/farmers-handbook/

Here is how Krishna of Solitude farm does no-till farming. This is done by growing velvet beans as cover crop and then broadcasting rice and then cutting and mulching velvet beans above this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0xmEDq3NIs

Unfortunately yield obtained from these methods is not available.

Here is one French blog where no-till has been pictured, not able to contact this person.

http://marssfarm.centerblog.net/

Shallow tillage direct seeding

The challenge now I am facing with rice/sesame/cow pea cultivation is the lack of uniform germination. I felt germination is better with tillage and as part of this was reading the book 'The Natural Way of Farming' once again to see the initial experiments of Fukuoka San. He has done lots of experiments before coming to the success and here is a section from the
book.

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Shallow-tillage direct seeding: 22 pounds of each barley and rice seed may be sown together in the autumn and field raked. An alternative is to lightly till the field with a plow to a depth of 2 inches, then sow clover and barley seed and cover the the seed with rice straw. Or after shallow tilling, a planter may be used to plant seed individually or drill.Good

results can be had in water-leak paddy fields by using this method first, and then later switching to no-tillage cultivation. Success in natural farming depends on how well shallow, evenly sown seeds germinate.

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The book clearly says uniform germination is the key and suggest to use 22 pounds (9.9Kg) of rice seeds per quarter acre, i.e - 39.6Kgs per acre which is a good quantity of seeds which will make sure, uniform germination. In conventional method locally they suggest to use 33Kgs per acre, while in transplanting using SRI method, just 3Kgs is used per acre, since only single rice plant is put in every 1 feet distance. 

In addition to this, book suggests to go for shallow tillage initially and later switching to no-tillage.

Seed ball experiences

I tried making seed balls in this season for finger millet, rice, cow pea and sesame. I was reasonably successful in making seed balls for finger millet, rice and sesame. For all these seeds I was able to make them wet and mix with white ant hill soil and after 5-6 iterations seedballs were ready, it was reasonable from effort and output point of view. For cowpea, making them wet, they started soaking water and seeds become large and the outer cover peels off and even if seed balls are formed, some time seeds come out since the outer cover of the seed is very smooth. Hence I had to roll individual seeds which was time consuming.

I tried rice seedballs and germination was very bad. There might have some issue with watering also, seeds being in seedball need more water first to soak the seedball mud and then seed. For finger millet, sesame and cow pea also the germination was very bad. All these seeds I had broadcasted and cut and mulched the grass. Other than moisture, I am not sure what other factors affect this. For cowpea and rice, I had seen the seeds eaten by some insects and some time the seeds were damaged and they just disintegrates on pressing. Probably some moisture was there, but it was not enough for healthy germination, but enough to damage the seeds. One thing strongly felt is that, in summer when moisture is less,using seedball is not that useful, since when you want to cultivate with available moisture, seedballs take extra moisture to soak the soil covering. I could see that after watering the field completely by next day, the field is dry at the top, but underneath there is moisture which is enough for the seeds to germinate.

When I tried sesame, and none of them had germinated, even after watering. Typically sesame is cultivated after rice using available moisture. They till the land and put the sesame seeds and again till it and the seeds germinate with the available moisture. Also I think, when the seeds are in direct contact with moist soil, the chances of germination is much better.

In the next trial, I made an opening in the soil using a sharp tool and put sesame seeds in this line. And I could see lot of them germinated. In some cases, where there was mulch, germination was bad, it looks like being very small seed, they won't be able to lift the mulch and come up. From my experience so far, germination is better when seeds are put inside the moist soil.

Making opening in the soil was time consuming and hence now wanted to broadcast the seeds and then rake the soil so that seeds go into the moist soil.

In Masanobu Fukuoka's 'Natural Way of Farming' in the picture 'Toward a natural way of farming' he says to follow 'Direct-seeding with shallow tillage' before going for 'no-tillage direct-seeding'.

Rescue of snake

After digging the well, next week we found a snake in the water. The well was not covered and  no boundary wall so one snake found its way to the well. When I first saw it, it was not moving so put a small stone in the well, then could see it moving and not dead. Even though I am not an expert can identify cobra, viper, rat snake and a few others, but being at a distance of 33 feet, couldn't identify it. My worker Palani also couldn't identify it.

After couple of days, when I visited the farm, carried a rope and wanted to put a basket tied to it and put in the water, so that snake can escape from the well at night. As soon as we lowered the basket, it noticed it and came towards it and when we just moved it, it had its hood visible and tried to attack the basket. Now identification was easy, it was a cobra !!. Couple of times, it made the hissing sound and came again to attack the basket and later it dived into the water and was not seen for some time.

When we saw the next day, it had gone..it would be now roaming in the farm.

Digging an open well - updated on March 2014

I wanted to construct a small house in the farm for staying in the farm on weekends and also when more work is there and also for accomodating some guests. As part of this, 3 years back I started the work of an open well. In one summer it was dugged to a depth of 19 feet and there was no water and work was dropped. There was rocks at the bottom and it had to be blasted, so the work was stopped. Next year, got another team of labourers and brought one team for blasting the rocks. They bring the compressor in the tractor and make holes in the rock and put the explosives and then apply some eletric trigger and blasts the rock. The explosive is put at a depth of 2 feet and hence each blasting clears a depth of 2 feet.

Again after reaching a depth of 25 feet, there was no water ...and neighboring wells have water. They just dig another 2 feet in just one place to see if there is water, but there was no water, except that soil was little bit moist. In the 2nd year also the work was stopped.  I brought a person who uses some sticks and see the presence of water. In the well position, he didn't show any possibility of water and he suggested another area, but he also suggested since I have reached this depth, it is better to try another few feets.

This year, in the third attempt, we digged further with blasting rocks with explosives. And after reaching a depth of 30 feet, there was water !!!. I was so happy to see the water dripping from inside...We blasted twice again and now reached a depth of 33 feet and there is around 2 feet water inside the well. Hope there will be water till May and after that rain starts.

The farm has complete mulch every where and earth worm castings are also seen in lot of places. So I am assuming, there is lot of water going inside, but still planning to do a recharge using small pits made here and there so water can get recharged easily.

After couple of days, when we measured the depth of water, it was 4feet+, it is unbelievable and felt so happy.

 Here are some photos...

2013 rain was good and open well had recharged nicely. But 2014 summer is also going strong and open well at my house has gone dry and I could see nearby ponds also are going dry. But to my surprise well at the farm has still some water, at least 3-4 feets. I am planning to put more recharging pits around the well this time.

 2017-May

2016 rain was bad and estimated to be less by 40-50% and summer is very severe, most of the ponds dried, lot of coconut trees have dried. Well dried up in September, also it never recharged fully. I have to carefully tap all the rain water and put into sub soil. Planning to make trenches to redirect rain water and evaporation loss by sun and wind will be minimal and humas formation will be maximum at this condition, and humas holds lot of water, so trees will have more water available.

Cows in the farm

It has been 4 years since I started my natural farming now and so far I haven't made any compost or applied any cow dung in the farm.Once I made 200 litres of Jeewamrithm and applied to banana and coconut. But it was just once, can not say it was effective or not.

Every time I fail in natural farming I go back to 'One straw revolution' or 'Natural Farming' book since there is a model in which Fukuoka san demonstrated success with natural farming and some times I watch the videos. We can see that Fukuoka san applied around 650-900 pounds of chicken manure before the rice cultivation starting and some time he adds another 200 pounds. Getting chicken manure is difficult now a days and also lot of chemicals are injected to them and given along with the foods and hence it is not safe to use chicken manure from outside.

My rice yields were not attractive in the last season, I just got around 15Kgs of paddy from close to 0.5 acre. There are many reasons why the yield was less - germination was poor and hence plant density was less, weeds were more and some places they took control and paddy was out grown, in some area cows ate some portions of my crop..But effectively I thought some kind of manuring also will boost the production like Fukuoka san did with chicken manure.

Bought two calves from a nearby market where farmers from different areas bring cows, buffaloes etc and sell it. I went there in the early morning at 7AM and should have reached there by 6AM to get the proper ones. Looked for some indigenous varieties of calves, but could get only one and the other one was a hybrid variety. I had to spend 7000/- Indian rupees for the two calves, including the transportation to the farm.

I am pretty much sure that if the number of cows in a farm increases, the fertility will definitely go down. I am hoping that with 2 cows and 9.25 acres, I should be able to achieve some balance. I will try it out for some time and if it does not work out, will have to sell the cows.

My family is all thrilled to take care of the calves...

May 27,2013

Both cows are enjoying the natural farming grass from the farm and they have become more healthy and beautiful. There is visible difference in their skin, one becoming more whitish and red one's skin is more glossy.

Aug 14,2013

In the rainy season, they have enough to eat and looks better. Just grass/water is fed, no other artificial food so far.

Feb-2015
my son with local cow..it withstands summer well and eats dry leaves, and whatever it can and remains healthy

She gets affected by drought badly..

26-Sept-2015

Artificial insemination was given to her by local veterinary doctor as of Aug 17-2015.

27-December-2015

17-May-2016

The red cow has given birth to male calf. My kids were excited to see him and initially the calf was uncomfortable with us, later he became good friend.

27-May-2016

White cow also has given birth to a male calf....She is quite concerned about his son...when moved to another place for grazing, she just looks for him and does not eat any thing..if you touch the calf, she makes some sound....

08-March-2019

Our cow (Ammini) was finally sold to Radhakrishnan an organic farmer in Palakkad. She was not getting pregnant and finally as per expert advise, she may need a bull nearby and artificial insemination is not working. I wanted to sell her to an organic farmer who can take care of her, so sold at a price of 12000/ rupees which is much less than the market price. She gave her some good memories to cherish, especially for my kids.

Small hand held weeder - for natural farming

Recently bought the weeder (Nejiri Scraper) from www.hidatool.com. This was introduced by Jason Stewart of Fukuoka farming group and on seeing found it useful and bought online by making payment through Paypal. The cost of one weeder was 10.9$ and international priority mail charge was 40.9$, I bought two such weeders and totally it costed me 62.7$. Hidatool sent the tracking information and hence could track it till it reached Indian airport, it entered customs clearance and after clearance complete there was no tracking and after a silent period, the parcel reached me. It took around 23 days to reach the parcel from US.

This tool is useful for me for weeding in the paddy field, when there is grass in between paddy plants. Since it is small in length can be used to weed between the plants, it is very sharp and cut the weeds very effectively. Only issue is that since the handle is small, we have to bend and do the work.  I haven't used it extensively, so more report on this later.

Here are some pictures....