Hello Friends,
The August trend continued in September. Tomatoes continued to produce well, Brinjal production showed declining trend due to continued presence of root and shoot borers. The fields where Pole Beans and Musk Melon had earlier been planted had been planted with a green manure Nitrogen fixing crop. It was intended that this crop would be ploughed into the soil just before flowering to increase the fertility of the soil for the coming crop. Photographs of the green cover can be seen below. As we explore alternatives we discover that covering the ground with green cover prevents growth of weeds and acts as a mulch enriching the soil. One of the main components of labour input costs is weeding in the farming method we had been following and we are starting to see a way to cut this by at least fifty percent by adopting green mulching which we will definitely explore in the next crop cycle.
Our exercise in exploring options and alternatives for agriculture with lower input costs and natural and biological pest control methods have opened up interesting new avenues. Visits to farms and farmers and research on unconventional and newer ways of farming ( actually a continuation of ancient methods ) are throwing up interesting new options. We will incorporate all the practices we can, progressively into our farms. Sustainability of using of Chemical Fertilizers and Pesticides is one theme that we have come across repeatedly and hence an area we are studying in more depth now.
The journey continues and we hope to overcome the hiccups in the next crop cycle. The Cumbum valley gets more than sixty percent of its rains from the North East Monsoon which is expected to set in by the second or third week of October and the next vegetable planting season will be post the monsoon showers which is expected to go on till mid November.
Rajesh
The August trend continued in September. Tomatoes continued to produce well, Brinjal production showed declining trend due to continued presence of root and shoot borers. The fields where Pole Beans and Musk Melon had earlier been planted had been planted with a green manure Nitrogen fixing crop. It was intended that this crop would be ploughed into the soil just before flowering to increase the fertility of the soil for the coming crop. Photographs of the green cover can be seen below. As we explore alternatives we discover that covering the ground with green cover prevents growth of weeds and acts as a mulch enriching the soil. One of the main components of labour input costs is weeding in the farming method we had been following and we are starting to see a way to cut this by at least fifty percent by adopting green mulching which we will definitely explore in the next crop cycle.
Our exercise in exploring options and alternatives for agriculture with lower input costs and natural and biological pest control methods have opened up interesting new avenues. Visits to farms and farmers and research on unconventional and newer ways of farming ( actually a continuation of ancient methods ) are throwing up interesting new options. We will incorporate all the practices we can, progressively into our farms. Sustainability of using of Chemical Fertilizers and Pesticides is one theme that we have come across repeatedly and hence an area we are studying in more depth now.
The journey continues and we hope to overcome the hiccups in the next crop cycle. The Cumbum valley gets more than sixty percent of its rains from the North East Monsoon which is expected to set in by the second or third week of October and the next vegetable planting season will be post the monsoon showers which is expected to go on till mid November.
Rajesh
