No-till experiment using germinated rice seeds - 2019

Sowing pre-germinated rice seeds a usual practice followed by farmers. In no-till, using seed ball I don't get uniform rate, not sure the exact reason, may be I have to put simply more seed balls. Fukuoka san used to establish the germination and again put seeds, so this looks to be a practice to follow. 

Anyway wanted to try sowing pre-germinated seeds this time.Put seeds in water for 24-hours and kept then in jute sack for 12 hours and seeds starts germinating. This was put in the field after cutting grass. The field has tall grasses, cut it using scythe and my helper did it with sickle and cutting of the area was finished in 3 hours time for 0.05 acre. Later I cut this area using brush cutter with plastic string and took another 3.5 hours to complete it. I am finding that Scythe-Brush cutter combination works better, to clear small grasses brush cutter is good. Next day, the field was flooded and then seeds were sown. Wanted to mulch back, but there was some mulch left in the ground, thought that should be enough.

After sowing the seed, I didn't mulch with the remaining grass since the seeds were having its roots out and stepping on that may destroy it. So one more improvement is to just have it germinating so that after sowing, we can still walk on the field to mulch it some more.

30-June-2019
Could see peacock and chickens picking up seeds. Chickens were real nuisance, they were coming again and again, so not sure what will happen to this. May be if I had mulched it, completely, then some seeds would have saved, I didn't do fearing that, stepping on seeds, would kill it.

16-July-2019

Since seeds were pre-germinated, they are ahead of grass, but grass some time overtakes them after wards. May be more seeds would have crowded out weeds, that is some thing to be tried for next season.

19-Aug-2019

No weeding was done, still rice is just managing..

06-October-2019

Grass and rice plants growing together..In some area, there is good establishment of rice plants..May be putting more seeds and mulching would help. But feel sowing germinated rice plant is the way to go in our climate till good humus is developed.

Turmeric Under Mango Tree

Read in the veteran organic farmer Chandran Mash's book that turmeric grows well under mango tree and ginger under jack fruit tree. Also a natural farmer Pappachan from Kannur advised me to try planting ginger using just mulch. Put seeds directly in soil, after cutting the pureria cover crop and then put a handful of dried cowdung above seed and then mulch lightly. When the mulch decomposes again mulch do this couple of times. Trying this using turmeric under mango tree.

20-June-2019

04-September-2019

Since this is near walking path, cut and clear this area once in a while..

Pongamia Alley Cropping Trial

Similar to Inga Alley Cropping, since Pongamia tree is the best replacement for Inga tree, this trial is going on.Got around 3Kgs of Pongamia seeds from a friend called Suresh and it was put in a separate area and it was watered couple of times, it germinates well and growth is very fast.

28-June-2019

Pongamia trees are growing well in the nursery, has to be planted in the actual place in a month.

Turmeric planting

In one area of the farm, planted turmeric by employing 4 women laborers. There were tall grass growing in this area, cut the long grass using scythe and kept them aside and then cleared the area using brush cutter with plastic thread, this works much faster. Trying to cut tall grass using brush cutter is more time consuming.

Also got around 18 bags of cowdung and spread in the pit before planting turmeric fingers.

14-June-2019

Employed 4 women laborers and completed turmeric planting. Applied another 9 bags of dried cowdung. Efficiency of workers is less when there are more people, lots of time spent on talking, have to try with 2 and also directly working along with them.

Planning to apply cowdung slurry and also one or two weeding and mulching.

29-August-2019

Did one weeding and mulching with glyrecedia leaves, so far it looks good.

Finger millet and Sorghum sowing

11-June-2019

Cut some non-used area of the farm and sown seedballs of finger millet and Sorghum. In one area, the grass is not strong, since there is shade from trees and also mulch from the tree leaves. These seedballs are small size,bigger size makes more time, so went for small size.

28-June-2019

Finger millet was not germinated at all and Sorghum only a few seeds. Both were in seed balls and rain was less after putting, also seed balls were small, so probably soil would have washed away soon before germination and seeds got eaten by ants. So at this point it looks to me that putting germinated seeds in wet ground is much better and predictable. If rain fed, wait for a good rain and before the groud dries up, have to put germinated seeds and mulch lightly.

Sighting a bird nest

Since we received a couple of good rains, thought of clearing some bushes in the farm. My farm helper was employed for this task and I was also helping in this task. When I was cutting some subabul bushes, two birds came and sat some what closer to me, it was little bit unusual. I just looked around to see if there are some nests around, but could not see anything. I continued my work and could see one bird sitting on a branch close to me and pulling out some thing, I could sense it was not eating any insect at that close distance from me. I just looked,and found a small nest with two eggs. The birds were trying to protect it, and since there were many red ants around, they were pulling out from the nest. I felt happy that I could see it before cutting that branch, I just stopped the work and moved back. They were guarding the nest and one was sitting inside the nest. The bird population in the farm has increased quite a lot since there are wild growth throughout the farm.

15-May-2019

Saw the nest yesterday, only remains of eggs are there, it looks like eggs hatched and young birds have left the place.

Abandoned puppies in the farm

Since it is mango season, I was checking if there are mangoes ready for harvesting in one far end of the farm, and could hear cry of some puppies at a distance as I walked. On hearing my footstep, they stopped crying for some time and again started.This area is little deserted and could see three puppies, one was lying and was in unconscious state, one was struggling from red ant bytes. There are red ants every where in summer, especially in mango trees. They were a week old and had opened their eyes.

Didn't feel like leaving them there, since they will all starve to death, carried them to my farm house and kept them in a basket. Went and bought some milk and gave them in a bowl, they were not knowing how to drink milk, may be they are just used to drink their mother's milk only. Then kept their head near the milk and they started drinking, the one in unconscious state also finally woke up and drank milk. All had red ants on them, I cleaned them up and all had some kind of insects moving in their skin. One was male and two was females and there was no demand for them. I kept some milk and water and left for the day and asked my farm helper to give them milk.

Next day when I came, they were not seen at all, since opposite farm had some people, they sensed it and started going towards them.They didn't want puppies and they were busy with their work. I brought two of them back and one was not seen, they told one was seen at one end of their farm. I gave the two some milk and was busy with the work so thought will go and search for the third one after some time. By the lunch time, I searched for the 3rd one and she was in one corner of the farm. She had gone following a person, and later didn't know how to come back. On seeing me, she came running behind me and she walked back to my farm house following me.

Next 2 days, I didn't visit farm and when I visited farm, none were there. Later learnt that, my farm helper had taken them to his home, felt happy about it. If he takes care of them till some stage, thought of giving some money for that work. That day there was a small festival there and when I went there, the kids there told the actual story. One was male puppy so they kept them home and abandoned 2 puppies in a nearby farm where nobody comes usually. I just took the kids with me and we had to walk some distance and finally 2 were there in the middle of another farm and they were starving for 2 days. I just took them back and kept them in my farm house and gave them milk. I used to tell all these stories with my family and my wife and kids are really interested in puppies. My daughter was here for her vacation from hostel, she and son accompanied me to the farm on the next. Finally we decided to take both the puppies back home and look after for some time and decide later what to do with them. It looked like both puppies had some wounds and worms were there, applied some spray but one was in bad conditioned it died. She felt lonely when her companion had gone, but soon recovered. It also had wound, but it recovered and finally we built one cage and she is happy now.

03-May-2019