This year onwards, rice will be rainfed and no water from the well since motor has got burnt and decided not to repair it. After harvesting last crop, I had sown sunhemp which had come up nicely. I was searching for sunhemp seeds locally and also in Coimbatore, finally didn't get from there. So finally found a supplier in internet, made payment to their bank account and they promptly the sent 10Kgs of seeds.
Sunhemp came up reasonably well, even though at some places there were some gaps, it looks like the moisture is the most limiting factor for their germination. After germination, there was no irrigation at all, still they grew well, especially mulching helped.
Feb 27,2021
15 March, 2021Some early photos, even though the land is cracked, they are growing well.20 May, 2021
On the day of tilling the land..the tractor path was created when the felled trees were transported using tractor.
23-May-2021Today employed 3 ladies and dibbled the seeds in line. Initially one lady opened up the field using Folkin's hoe and two started putting seeds, then they felt it is going very slow. Then they started putting seeds along the lines left by the rotovator and length wise of the field. Each lady will put 3 places and then they will cover it with soil, that worked out well. May be next time, instead of putting soil, we can put some compost, that way each point will be fertilized also.
1-June-2021
There was no good rain after dibbling the seeds, so only at a few places seeds germinated,has to wait for some more time.
20-July-2021
Lots of gap in between, since at the time of sowing there was less water and lots of seeds didn't germinate. Also since there is no water pumping from well, and it is completely rain fed initial growth was affected. Now I did provision to get irrigation water channeled through the farm, it comes once in 10 days, depending on that.
Ladies weeded it for 4 days, totally 18 labor-days to complete this. I also did some weeding using push-pull hoe, initially mud was getting stuck in this and it was difficult. Later with more rain, it became easy.
18-August-2021
Flowering started...
Irrigation water coming through channel...this is a new provision done in the farm
4th September,2021
Grains have formed started turning slightly yellow
September 23,2021
Harvest completed...just got around 25Kg of paddy..Main reason is that number of plants were much less, since because of water shortage only few seeds germinated. Since being upland field, peacocks could enter easily and eat, if the stand is very thick, they won't enter much. Straw was put back in the same field
Lessons learnt
1. After ploughing using rotovator, it took around 25 days for weeds to come out, so it may be advisable to sow the seeds after a good rain so that field is really wet. Once the field is wet, it may be better to put presoaked seeds. Having a uniformly germinated field is a must...plan to put more seeds, or plan to transplant the seedlings where-ever there is gap.
2. Putting a number of seeds in one place, has many failure chances since there is a possibility of some big mud block blocking seeds, lack of moisture etc...always found continuously putting seeds is a better method and failure chances are reduced
3. 5 ladies came for harvest, has to be strict, 3 could have finished the work
