Hello Friends,
It rained heavily right through October and into the third week of November extended by a week as a result of a depression off Kanyakumari as the Met office reports. In the third week we decided to risk planting a vegetable nursery and got caught in the depression induced rain. The nurseries survived the rain with some timely temporary covering with left over thatching material from our cowshed building. All neighbouring farms will start their nurseries only after the middle of December which is the normal duration of the North East monsoon in these parts. Our main nurseries will also be done only at this time.
However we took advantage of the rains to plant about five hundred sticks of Gliricidia Sepium, a leguminous tree which is a nitrogen fixer as well as a prolific producer of green manure in terms of leaves which can be ploughed into the soil to increase the organic content..a new thought induced by our exploration of alternate farming methods. We have also planted about two thousand seeds of Sesbania Grandiflora in our nursery, another tree for similar purpose.All these will be planted along the borders of the farms to supplement the farm with organic material for improving the fertility of the farms.
Our background research continues to make progress and I am personally convinced now that Natural Farming is the way to go in the long term. In this mode the input costs are kept at negligible levels, the soil fertility is enhanced progressively and the yield levels keep increasing and get as good as modern methods with the difference that yields are obtained with very little input costs on the fertilizer and pesticides front. This is not Organic Farming because that involves certification and also purchase of inputs by way of organic fertilizers and organic pesticides again leading to high input costs which is what we need to get around to achieve consistent yield and profitability.
We have sold a second lot of bananas from our first crop but the price realization remains depressed with a realization of rupees five a kilo..another reason we have to keep costs low in the future so that crops remain profitable even if prices periodically swing down.
We are going to be addressing the weeding labour costs next crop cycle by substituting mulching to avoid weed growth rather than allow it to grow and then employ labour to remove them. Traditionally paddy straw was used for mulching but with combined harvesters coming into vogue straw is left in the paddy field itself. So what we are going to do is to keep two acres of land to grow forage grass and cut and dry that and use that to cover the soil around our vegetable plants to contain weed growth.
I think our test farm will be very educative as we will be testing out a lot of concepts out here to gain first hand knowledge..regretfully technical consultant types in agriculture seemed to have only one thinking pattern which is to apply petrochemical derivative NPK..Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium in its chemical form and apply ever increasing quantities of more and more costly and poisonous pesticides to wipe out ever more resistant mutants of pests.
I have come across a video of an Indian Follower of Masanobu Fukuoka, Shri Bhaskar Save of Gujarat which I link to below for the benefit of those of you who may be interested in knowing more about this.
It rained heavily right through October and into the third week of November extended by a week as a result of a depression off Kanyakumari as the Met office reports. In the third week we decided to risk planting a vegetable nursery and got caught in the depression induced rain. The nurseries survived the rain with some timely temporary covering with left over thatching material from our cowshed building. All neighbouring farms will start their nurseries only after the middle of December which is the normal duration of the North East monsoon in these parts. Our main nurseries will also be done only at this time.
However we took advantage of the rains to plant about five hundred sticks of Gliricidia Sepium, a leguminous tree which is a nitrogen fixer as well as a prolific producer of green manure in terms of leaves which can be ploughed into the soil to increase the organic content..a new thought induced by our exploration of alternate farming methods. We have also planted about two thousand seeds of Sesbania Grandiflora in our nursery, another tree for similar purpose.All these will be planted along the borders of the farms to supplement the farm with organic material for improving the fertility of the farms.
Our background research continues to make progress and I am personally convinced now that Natural Farming is the way to go in the long term. In this mode the input costs are kept at negligible levels, the soil fertility is enhanced progressively and the yield levels keep increasing and get as good as modern methods with the difference that yields are obtained with very little input costs on the fertilizer and pesticides front. This is not Organic Farming because that involves certification and also purchase of inputs by way of organic fertilizers and organic pesticides again leading to high input costs which is what we need to get around to achieve consistent yield and profitability.
We have sold a second lot of bananas from our first crop but the price realization remains depressed with a realization of rupees five a kilo..another reason we have to keep costs low in the future so that crops remain profitable even if prices periodically swing down.
We are going to be addressing the weeding labour costs next crop cycle by substituting mulching to avoid weed growth rather than allow it to grow and then employ labour to remove them. Traditionally paddy straw was used for mulching but with combined harvesters coming into vogue straw is left in the paddy field itself. So what we are going to do is to keep two acres of land to grow forage grass and cut and dry that and use that to cover the soil around our vegetable plants to contain weed growth.
I think our test farm will be very educative as we will be testing out a lot of concepts out here to gain first hand knowledge..regretfully technical consultant types in agriculture seemed to have only one thinking pattern which is to apply petrochemical derivative NPK..Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium in its chemical form and apply ever increasing quantities of more and more costly and poisonous pesticides to wipe out ever more resistant mutants of pests.
I have come across a video of an Indian Follower of Masanobu Fukuoka, Shri Bhaskar Save of Gujarat which I link to below for the benefit of those of you who may be interested in knowing more about this.
Our Pre Season Nursery
More later.
Rajesh
