My Farm visit experience - May, 2015 - Part 3

Banana Under growth.

The biggest issue now is how to make the soil uniformly fertile?  There could be quick answers like remove the top soil, add red soil, add fertilizer, grow green manure and so on.... All of these cost tons of money. With natural farming techniques and available resources doing this is a challenge.

These trees are healthy and near the tower......

Especially when your team has still not quite understood the workings of panjagavya, jeevamrudam or any natural techniques or when the ground facilities donot permit that.

For example when there is no water the staff keep thinking only about it. They dread growing anything like green manure.  When water is occupying your head.......

Panaroma of same Banana Patch all planted 5 months back.
Note the unhealthy growth on the left slowly graduating to healthy one on the right

The above picture shows banana trees planted at the same time.  Some areas have dwarf growth whereas in others there is full growth.  Non availability of biomass in soil could be a reason. But I feel not watering them properly could also be a reason, which Subbu doesnot agree with me.

I have a reason to think so.  Look at the dwarf trees. They are looking healthy. Perhaps because water conditions have improved. Perhaps because of few days of rain that preceded. That means if we had watered it must have grown.  You never know......

Well to improve the soil I advocated atleast twice in the past of sowing multi grain mixture.  It was promptly done and got dried without sprouting in few days. Such is the intensity of heat and dryness. Subbu fears if we plan anything, we need to water them. That (water resource) is scarce. How do you then add fertility to soil.

One idea is to wait till rains and sow the seeds. But the moisture will dry in few days. After that ?

Recently It has been decided we will apply manure prepared else where.  It requires more cowdung.  I have ordered for two tracktor loads of cow dung which is expected in few days. We will prepare liquid panjagavya and solid gana jeevarmidam and apply. Perhaps that will improve.

Key Highlights of Farm Visit and making of Panjagavya

I could visit the farm twice amidst tight family function of a close relative. The following things were successfully completed. Besides there were many observations that were recorded which we will see over a few days.
       a) Making of Panjagavya was demonstrated practically.
       b) Planning for wind Energy for pumping water
       c) Planning for Swale

Royal feast for plants - Panjagavya

I told Subbu to arrange for Cow Urine (Komiyam) which is the most difficult part of the process, I thought. But later I found he had arranged a about 10 liters of it in a 'Kudam', a silver utensil popular in South TamilNadu. How did he manage?  He told he had asked his mother to catch the urine early in the morning starting 3 AM directly from the cow.  His family owns few cows. Now that makes my job easy. Cool. Otherwise I wanted to visit a nearby cow shed and get into an agreement for continuous supply of urine. We are yet to implement the PVC pipe idea discussed earlier in this blog.



Materials kept ready for mixing Panjagavya: Jaggery, banana,
Curd, Milk, Sugarcane juice, beasan powder, pot of Cow Urine,
Bucket of Cowdung and an empty drum.



I had brought Jaggery, Milk, Sugar Cane Juice, Beasan Powder, Curd and banana in nearby town Nanguneri before proceeding to the farm in an auto. At the appointed hour my farmer Kandan was missing. He had been to attend his wife who was unwell. Waited for two hours and started the process of mixing the cowdung. Initially the team was feeling not so focussed. If it were an office, we would have thought 'ah one more HR initiative'. But when I put my bare hand in the bucket of cowdung and emptied into a drum brought for this purpose, and poured Cow Urine, the team started feeling serious about my act and listened carefully. Then onwards i was only instructing and they did everything.



Breaking Jaggery ball with stone. Kandan learning...



Cow Dung was mixed with Cow Urine. Some water was poured to maintain some consistency. Followed by Jaggery. It was difficult to break the jaggery and we used stone. Followed by Milk sachet, Cane Sugar Juice packed in polythene cover. One of the packets burst on everyone while opening. Curd was added followed by Beasan powder and Banana. There is no sequence. The entire mixture was stirred well. I forgot to add garden soil which was promptly added on my next visit.  I feel I have added 1/2 Kg of beasan powder and not enough Jaggery. That I think will be compensated by Cane juice.

When I mentioned that we need to keep in shade, team felt the drum had to be kept inside the room. The other reason is fear of theft (of the drum which cost Rs.900). We did. But soon i realised the room will stink. So we moved the drum to the shaded are under the thatched roof outside. I advised them to cover the bright blue drum with gunny bag so that it gets camoflaged. Now i understand why farm materials are kept dirty in apperance.

The soup is getting mixed. The lumps are Beasan Powder

The panjagavya should be ready for use in another 4 days. I told them to allow as many days as they feel it would take to turn the soup into a potent liquid. Team promised they will continue to add material to the drum after taking out the Panjagavya without letting it go dry. This is good. Because the innumerable microbial bacteria or whatever organism should proliferate.

I asked them to be liberal in mixing this with water before watering the plant. Atleast for few months, extra boost is requred for the land which has not seen biomass for long time.

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