Summer 2014

Summer is very hot this year at 40 degree centigrade. So far no summer rain, hope to receive some rain in next week.Watering is the only major activity now.I use flooded irrigation and it wastes lot of water, but other solutions like sprinkler, drip irrigation being costly, still sticks to this method. I have some plans of trying trench method which is suggested by Bhaskar Save and Subash Palekar.Digging trenches against the slope of the land, will also preserve water. I also have heard that the plants near the trenches never gets affected by summer. In any case plans to small rain pits throughout the farm.
Ground cover and mulch has improved, water retention, but still a long way to go. I can see earth worm castings throughout the land and hence water retention of the soil has improved. In areas where watering was done, once in a while, that area remains really green. Open well has some water and I love the taste and smell of it.

Neighbour wells has dried and some of them take water from this well for drinking and I was so happy to see that. Since well is deep and it is stored in earth, water is very cool.

Banana area is under stress, since this area hasn't been irrigated for 3 weeks now.  Mangoes have fruited reasonably well..but lot of fruits are falling down because of heat? I could see that the local varieties of mangoes are yielding much better. for e.g the small 'chandrakkaran' another variety has good amount of mangoes.

As usual, in the summer, white ants are there in full swing and do a good job..

Coconut harvesting is done by..one person single handedly did this task using a long pole, his wife and another boy collected and kept it at 4 different places...2700 coconuts in total..he charged 1 rupees per coconut for plucking and keeping it at one place..Coconut prices are good, one big coconut is sold at 15/- and per kg with water price is 26/- while in the open market it is sold at 34/-.

Harvested turmeric which I had cultivated in 3 raised bed. I did all the harvesting and maintained the bed so that it can be reused in the next season.
Vegetable area is being mulched and dried cowdung is put on this bed.

Cows are not having green grass..the hybrid one has become skinny but the local variety is eating even the dried grass and keeps healthy..both of them survived foot and mouth disease
House is almost ready for occupation except that there is no electricity..

Meanwhile some planning is going for next rainy season..last season's rice cultivation gave me 23Kgs of rice and it tasted very good and hence planning to go for 0.5 acre cultivation in the next season.

Interplanting of coconut still not happening, still lot of gap between coconut trees. so planning to put mangoes, cashew nuts, sitaphal, moringa and glyricedia etc.

                                                                Earth worm castings

                                         Chandrakkaran mango

Rice field

 

 
 
 
 

                                             Rice field

                                          Rice field with heavy straw mulch

                                           Rice field with cow pea grown as cover crop

Turmeric raised bed after harvest

                                                Local cow

                                                 Hybrid cow

                                          Banana under water stress

                                          Open well

                                         Still have some water - last time it  dried up in February

                                         Small mango tree started fruiting

House back side view

                                        House front view

                                        Coconut area

                                           Coconut area with no watering

                                         Coconut area with watering

                                           Tree with good yield

                                           Tree without any yield..summer affects some trees very badly

                                            white ants doing good job
 

Amazing natural farm of Masanobu Fukuoka

Amazing natural farm of Masanobu Fukuoka
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Here are some photos of amazing natural farm of Fukuoka. These photos were given to Raju Titus of Hoshangabad,MP during Fukuoka's first indian visit. Not sure,how does the farm looks now.

Fukuoka had rice,wheat,rye, mandarin oranges and vegetables. He didn't plough his field and applied straw and chicken manure as fertilisers. There was no need for any insecticides and his rice field was one of the top yielding.

Fukuoka had cultivated happy hill rice which he had developed in his fields. According to Fukuoka, "I have created, together with the insects in my fields, a new strain of rice I call "Happy Hill". This is a hardy strain with blood of wild variants in it, yet it is also one of the highest yielding strains of rice in the world. If a single head of Happy Hill were sent across the sea to a country where food is scarce and there sown over a ten-square-yard area, a single grain would yield 5000 grains in
one years time. There would be grain enough to sow a half-acre the following year, fifty acres two years hence, and 7000 acres in the forth year.This could become the seed of rice for an entire nation. This handful of grain could open up the road to independence for starving people".

Fukuoka cultivates Rice from May to October and Wheat from November to May, basically two grain crops which takes the entire year so that there is no gap between crops. It is important that there is always crop in the field, so that weeds does not get a chance to comeup. Some weeds are OK, but it should be minimal.

In early or mid-October, clover seeds are sown over standing heads of rice, then about 2 weeks before harvesting rice, Barley/Wheat seed is sown. White clover is used as a leguminous cover crop which enriches soil with nitrogen and also checks the weeds. Being leguminous white clover can be controlled by holding water in the field and this weakens clover but does not affect rice/wheat/barley which belongs to the grass class. Sowing Barley/Wheat before harvesting of Rice is very important since it allows the Barley/Wheat to germinate early so that weeds are held back. If Barley/Wheat is sown after harvest, then weeds also will be germinating along with Barley/Wheat. Once the weeds are established controlling them is difficult. Also the most care is needed for crops at the young stage and at this stage if there is competition from weeds, then crop will affected badly.

Similarly rice seeds in clay pellets are sown over the wheat/barley before harvest along with white clover.

Fukuoka cultivated orange with just using white clover as leguminous cover. Vegetables also were cultivated in the orchard.

From the photos you can find that it is an extremely productive farm, even though there was no-tilling, no-fertilizing, no-weeding and no-insecticides.