Swale must be a myth on a tropical plain land. There is no secret Ingrediant

Kungfu Panda discovers the secret - there is nothing

Mr. Ping: The secret ingredient is... nothing!
Po: Huh?
Mr. Ping: You heard me. Nothing! There is no secret ingredient.
Po: Wait, wait... it's just plain old noodle soup? You don't add some kind of special sauce or something?
Mr. Ping: Don't have to. To make something special you just have to believe it's special.
[Po looks at the scroll again, and sees his reflection in it]

Po: There is no secret ingredient...


After a lot of suspense, drama, demonstrations, arguments, lectures, followups and practical trial and error, finally I  have given up on Swale. 15 hours of bulldozer time was used to dig the farm, but  Subbu was adament he did not want to dig a swale. Because of my pressure he created a small crack and left it at that. Later when I questioned him (debriefing !) he had very strong reasons. I need to give element of doubt to him because he is on the ground, I am not.

What is the reason why he is averse over Swale ?

I made a fundamental basic assumption based on my observation of the top soil that water is flowing "into the farm".  As per Subbu however, water is found actually flowing "out of the farm" during rains.  Even if I force create a swale, it will make no difference to water table, in fact add to the mess, make the otherwise plain land into ups and downs, occupy precious space and cost money to maintain it.

Somehow our permafrost friends had always been insisting on Swale as the only solution for water harvesting.  They used to swear by all stars that Swale and bird droppings are the magic ingredients for a natural farm.  I as an "intellectual farmer" by watching "colourful videos" using my "browsing experience" got into believing that. I reduced and started questioning only when the permaculture "courses" were offered for a "huge fee".   It was not supposed to be that way.

In plains, water soaking should be done uniformly all over the place by loosening the soil by tilling. In plain tropical land, rain is the source of water and it falls vertically from the sky, uniformly all over the place. It doesnot run from uphill to downhill as there are no hills.   There is necessity to create Swale only when there is a "slope" by the mountain side.  On a slope a swale will break the flow of water, stagnate and send it seeping into the ground. But on a plain land, it is difficult to predict which way the water flows.  They flow in all directions. With slight change in top soil topology in the neighborhood, the water, in the form of thin layer of sheet will alter its direction. So what is the point in accumulating water through a swale?

It appears that digging a large pond for rainwater harvesting appears to be wise and sensible solution. Soil tilling and small trenches leading to the pond. We have done that. I am glad. Thanks for Subbu's wisdom.

Farm Photo Update - Progress on Water conservation

Overhead Tank Installed. This will create pressure using gravity

Elegant Windmill in the backdrop

Banana is slowly sprouting

JCB digging Rainwater catchment mini Pond.
Swale overflow will come here

Overflow fish water tank foundation near windpump 25 x 10

Rainwater pond 30 x 30 feet ready

Trench for submerging main water pipe to carry water across.

Where is Swale ? Subbu completly forgot to send the photo. Perhaps he is shy to share that. The more we are obsessive about anything, workers wish they donot want to expose their ignorance.  Moral of the story - donot over explain anything. They get scared.

Farm Update 20-July-2014

The JCB is running as of now in the farm digging the Swale and Rainwater catchment pond.  Many days of followup, long wait and got fed up with the existing JCB guy.  Therefore I told subbu to try for a new guy and here runs the machine.  The problem is all the swale concept must be "explained" all over again. Once again Subbu got confused.  It is but natural, when the wind is blowing, sun is shining, JCB is rolling, and you are anxious to arrange for all other things including lunch, you tend to miss the centre piece. Namely why JCB what a swale is in the first place.  Neverthless, we will be doing the following things today.

a) Cut a 25 x 40 x 4 feet pit on the mud for a water tank

b)  Create a trench as a swale parallel to the eastern fence.  The swale will be of 10 feet width and 3 feet depth. The mud will be accumulated to the inner side of the farm allowing free flow of water from outside into the trench.  I have tried my best to explain the concept.

c) Dig a pit (Rain water catchment) bit deeper in the middle of farm near the gate. The excess water from the swale and else where inside the farm, should ultimately flow into this pit. This pit will not be treated to hold water, rather it will have porous soil to seep the water inside.

d) Dig a 3 feet trench for laying a main pipeline from the wind pump upto the opposite fence. This will be the main pipe from where lateral will be taken. Subbu is positive he will do it himself.

Apart from this, it was decided to put stay wire to the wind pump tower.  As the wind is very high, there is a threat that due to wild movement of the machine at the top during heavy winds (cyclone) that the tower may bend. Therefore 5 MM thick steel wire has been purchased from Tirunelveli and kept ready. The three pits for anchoring the stay wire need to be dug, pending for someone to come.

Upon my insistence, some small vegetable beds have been created.  This is to experiment with few seeds of each of the varieties. Moreover this is also required to create work for the three workers, who are now quite relieved because of wind pump and the water tank. They are able to water the existing plants comfortable and still have more time. I wanted them to be engaged in growing food.  To begin with, some greens have been started. They also have put millets (Jowar) and green gram.

I hope the patches will start looking greener very soon.

Meanwhile the village president is waiting for us to submit a report for taking permission to construct the small room. The store room is already in place since one year.  I heard he is expecting some "money", atleast 15K to give permission.  Need to speak about that.  Instead of encouraging farming, they want to make money on every given possible way.

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Giving Final shape to irrigation facilities

Store the water at a Height
to create pressure

Wind pump has no brakes. The water will be pumped so far as there is wind, all the time. But the speed is lesser and equal to a half HP motor or even less. Therefore it is important to store every drop of water for reuse.

In the absence of any other energy sources to pump the water again, it is also important that water be stored at a height so that the kinetic energy (gravity) of water can be used to create water pressure.

With this in mind, I have designed the following.  The water tank shown in the picture (Drawn by me using Google sketchup)  is of 1000 liters and kept at a height of 13 feet from ground. overflow water is to be stored in a large tank of 25 feet x 10 feet x 5 feet.

Excess overflow water to a large fish tank

Such an arrangement will allow excess water to be stored in the large tank, which will be above ground level. (one feet below ground and 4 feet above). Water from this tank can be  opened at the bottom or occasionally pumped back into plastic tank using small 1/2 HP solar pump (a future project. idea courtesy Shri D V Sridharan of Point Return).

Today the water tank costing Rs. 4500/- was mounted atop an iron stand of 150 Kg weight costing Rs.14000/-  (Iron costs Rs. 80/- per KG including design and finishing. Raw iron is costing Rs. 56/Kg).  Subbu had designed the stand as per my oral approval. The stand also i believe includes an iron ladder and a protective ring for the water tank. The surface area over the stand to keep the tank is 4.5 feet x 4.5 feet, with enough free space.

The cement tank shown in the picture is not done yet. It will be 25 x 10 x 5 feet and might cost upto Rs. 45000/-.  This tank however is very crucial to pass over windless days by storing and using the water.  The water tank may be used to grow fish which may provide organic manure.

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How to get a Swale dug through Subbu ?

A typical Swale. The man is doing manually.
We will use JCB. Courtesy : Net

Theory is over. We had planned for a Swale since long (Refer earlier posts). Now for action.  Today Subbu was in Valliyoor town for a work. I asked him to visit a browsing center and sent him few photographs, which I downloaded from Net. And took an online "class" and how a Swale should look like after finish. This online coaching saved me a lot of efforts.

Earlier I had spoken to the JCB operator by drawing a diagram on the sand with my fingers. I donot know if he understood. He must have thought what this crazy guy is telling.  But this time for sure, I made Subbu take printouts and spend quality time with the JCB operator. Sort of briefing session before action.

Swale Concept from Net

The swale cutting should be lower on one side from where water enters and higher on other side not to allow water to escape. It must be deep to contain water. The overflow of water should go to a small pond that we are yet to dig along with swale.

Tomorrow bulldoser is coming. Hopefully they will do what I said. let us see.

It is important for me to close this quickly. There will be monsoon next month and once it starts rain, you cannot dig.

A JCB would cost around 750/- per hour for rent. Add Rs. 300 Bata to driver. If we do for 5 hours, it is going to cost 5 X 750 + 300 = 4050.

Last couple of months back on 2nd of May, when it rained during summer, there was water stagnation in Farm land all over. That was a learning. I called for some photographs to understand where the water is collecting. Subbu had made some temperory mud bund to contain the water, which he said was useful for 10 days after the rain.  We need to catch on this concept. I am now planning a swale exactly to the right of the mud bund so that we donot allow the water to go and spoil the interior but hold the water to the periphery of the farm.

Subbu's attempt to hold the water in May during a rare shower. Notice the dry grass all over in peak summer.

What you measure may not be what you want to see

Wind Speed for 315 days. Verticle axis shows Wind Speed  in meters per second on a day.
Note that wind "speed" is less now, but in fact wind is blowing high with "force"

It has again and again been proved that statistics is a lie. A damn lie.  We see that in corporate offices and news papers every day. A nicely laid string of numbers or graph may not and need not reflect the ground reality.  Be it stock market, farmer's suicide, GDP growth, Sales or any other. They (Statistics) only touch one angle of any issue. For presentation purpose it is further simplified and made to appear more trivial. But ground reality may be much more complicated, having so many dimensions to it.  It is this reason why many of the solutions fail because they attempt to redress only a part of the problem by simply looking at what has been presented to them. Probably giving raise to a new problem or side effect.

The anemometer  installed in my Farm at Nachankulam has so far run 23985 kilometers since January, 2014 After assembling all the figures upto 15.06.2014 from the anemometer, and putting togather on paper of 315 days of observation, it is surprising to find that the moving average speed at any given day is going down. It

Water splashing due to heavy wind

indeed was down in May, but in June when I went to install the Wind Pump the wind speed was so high that everything was flying.  The windmill was rotating so much that we could not properly assemble the parts. We had to arrest its motion by tying a rope to the propellers every time climbing atop the tower.

Water was splashing before reaching the ground, transmission rods were hitting against the frame,  and dry wind was blowing so much that you cannot talk or hear freely. Big Iron gates of the farm if kept open were being pushed by the wind, and it took two people to hold them back.   Every 5 minutes you will head for drinking water bottle as the wind was so high and dry it will remove all moisture out of you.

Yet the same period is shown as poor wind period in the above graph.  Anemometer cannot be faulty as I saw it was rotating fast. The counter was also clicking. What is the difference ? apparantly when the graph showed high variation during the day and night, the reality was that the wind energy was less. Now when wind is blowing at with high energy, the wind speeds are consistently showing as less.  Note that it is very consistent now.  The day/night variations are not much.  Subbu has an observation on this. He says now the wind is swirling and changing directions often now.  Earlier it was consistantly coming from one direction, perhaps fast.

I think now the wind is blowing with more volume and force, but not necessarily faster. So anemometer will show only wind speed and not wind energy.  Need to think if we are measuring the right thing. I am also not sure if there is a meter to measure the wind force in volume and not in speeds.

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