My experiments with Soil

Testing soil for chemical composition is like equivalent to today's medical tests.  After spending 200 dollars you will be given a complete 'profile' of your body in CD, Paper, graphs, certificates, conclusions only to confuse you further. You start reacting to the reports, you go mad very soon. If iodine is less, will you start consuming iodine? if calcium is less will you start eating calcium pills for example ? Beyond a point you won't know how your body will absorb them. Calcium supplements can interact with many prescription medicines, including antibiotics, bisphosphonates and high blood pressure medications leading to complications.

 Postmenopausal women were advocated heavy dose of calcium, which is now being questioned if at all it has any effect in preventing Osteoporosis (weakening of bone). Calcium accumulating on toes causing pain can be linked to your kitchen mosaic floor or calcium deficiency or excess calcium intake - no one knows for sure !  With increased adulteration in milk, people have stopped taking simple milk and yogurt. That is the whole problem.

I donot believe in making so much fuss about soil testing, analysis and choosing specific crops based on Ph factor. Soil conditions are always at a slice of time and specific to that period.  Soil should not be seen as a chemical compound but as a living entity. Just as for humans wholesome food is the answer for all ailments, the soil needs just the required biomass and water.

On a gross level what matters is the soil structure whether it is clay, sandy or in between and then the temperature. Crop can grow well with adequate supply of water, sunshine and biomass. Intervention with trace metals, organic and inorganic salts for a particular crop can give short term gain but can make the soil useless for other crops. Soil can grow almost any crop, given the right physical conditions.  How do you explain otherwise the rich red soil of Kerala, the dull clumsy clay of Panvel (Navi Mumbai), the dusty soil of Noida,  the rocky soil of Deccan all growing all types of crops. How otherwise you can account all rainforests that has multitude of genetic varieties growing on all soil conditions. Most of the crops that are grown today were once upon a time migrated or imported into the village and did not belong that region. But it grows. Potato, beans and cauliflower are not confined to Ooty alone. It grows well everywhere. So also Cabbage and others.  More and more organic farmers are proving the point...

Pot of useless contaminated mud, now thriving with living tissues

I had a lump of useless clay in one of the pots during my home experiment. It was having petroleum oil slick and detergent contamination. Visibly also it was looking worse.  Nothing grew in it and every attempt to grow anything including tough ones like money plant failed miserably. I did not throw the soil out, but took it as a challenge. Generous amount of cow dung, home made panjagavya were applied along with sufficient sunshine and time.  These inputs converted the soil into good one. I guess the microbes broke down the oil slick into its components. Within a period of two years, the soil has become fertile. Today there is throbbing life in that soil (See snaps).

Closeup. You can still see oil slick, but
is not behaving the way it used to be

I am confident that given any soil, we can always condition the same by adding biomass, grow weeds, make the soil workable and then use it for cropping. ANY CROP only limited by season and water.

Lack of water quickly hardens the soil whatever be the soil type. More than water, there is a moisture that is required to be preserved in the soil all the time. Too much water, the roots decay. Too less, the roots dry and the water carring capillaries in the root die down. Timing of water maintains required temperature as well. Watering little twice a day morning and evening is found to work better than watering once a day or excessive flooding once a few days. The continuous moisturisation of water is best achieved through drip irrigation or sprinkler. Both are found to be good technologies.  Dry air blown can carry away the moisture.

Therefore in RMF, the first step was to grow enough fence material so as to prevent dry air from blowing over the crops.  We have planned for 3 levels of plants - thorny bushes at outer layer (Bougainvillea, Casuarina).  useful bushes like Caesalpinia, Nerium Olender, Lawsonia inermis in 2nd layer and short trees in third row.  That will be followed by farm inner service road and then the crops.

For irrigation, we need powerful motors of 7 HP to operate Sprinklers or rain gun.  The farm will not have excess electric power or no electric power at all.  Therefore that idea is dropped. We will go for drip irrigation only mostly to take advantage of slow water filling, and gravity.

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Managing Farm Inputs

Managing the Farm from remote (1800 Kms away) is always a challange and fun.  Having planted few hundred saplings, I now need to think about bringing some biomass to the soil.

My soil is not so good. It is a worn-out sandy clay soil. Silted over a period of time due to non cultivation, running surface water and non-cultivation the soil is appearing coarse.  Already, whereever there is a sapling to be planted, I had asked my team to put red soil which was imported from else where in small quantity. Soil +

Pseudomonos Bacteria 
I liked this color so I have put the picture here.



coconut coir waste + cowdung was mixed and filled into the pit. Kannan, my worker is already a farmer and knows about it.  I added further value by sending my team to nearby KVK (80 Kms away) to purchase Psudamonos viridi and i think rhizobium.  Initially the team said they have nothing in stock. But such things are not in front desk and you need to ask specifically. Upon questioning one coordinator came in line and explained what he has. I asked him to impress upon my team how to use it.  Then onwards the saplings were treated before re-planting and they now have a hang of it.

Now coming to fertilizer.  I had dreamt of creating some vermi compost units with mechanisation before anything else - some mixer, grinder, chopper, conveyor belt, composting areas, storage area, filtering machines etc.  But you see dreaming is different from putting to action.  We can dream endlessly, but everything costs money and fancy processes to be developed. It cannot be done just lik that.

The cheapest thing for me to do now is to import cow dung. Which I have done in the past one week. 1 tracktor load of cowdung costs Rs. 1200/-.  I understand loads are going to kerala from here at 1500/- per load. I need to be now careful to grab my share from the cow shed owners. Should think of how to reduce the cost.. Easiest thing is to keep my own cows... but is some time away..

So cow dung is here.  Next is adding value.  Panjakavya. Subbu had brought a blue drum for it and was asking how to make panjakavya without Cow Urine. !.. Because cow dung is easy to get and not cow urine.  The cow Urine will just go waste running on the mud floor of the cow sheds. Because there is no means to collect it. The floors are not concrete.  I had given him an idea

(You see that is the problem with IT guys. We have solutions for everything irrespective of wheather you like it or not).   Take a PVC pipe of 6 inches diameter and one feet length or more. Plug that deep inside the soil after digging a proper verticle hole such that entire pipe is submerged. This has to be down where there is natural tendancy of water to get collected in low level.  See the picture to right.  On the top put one lid having small holes.  Now when cow will urinate, the urine will drain normally and get into this PVC pipe and get collected. Later we can pump this out using simple kerosene pump into another container. Simple isnt it. ? But our guys will not do it. I have reserved its implementation for another day.

Meanwhile without using cow Urine or using very little we can prepare Gana Jeevamrutham (Solid Fertiliser). Mix cowdung 10kg with 2 KG of spoiled jaggery and 1 KG of beasan powder, Cow Urine and some water. Allow it to cool for 3 days and apply on the roots. - This is the prescription i have given now. Hope it works.....

The other development is that the anemometer has reached by courier to the farm. Now it has to be mounted on a pole. My guys were asking if they can purchase 3 Sticks instead of one. The idea is to construct a kind of ladder so that they can climb up and take readings. I said ok go ahead.  I suggested buying a bamboo ladder and two poles. But due to cost (Even Rs. 1000/- is not to be wasted. They are sensitive about cost and i must respect that.) it was given up. Hope anemometer will be up and running in a couple of days....I am not sure how they will mount on top of 3 poles using a wooden plank. I must wait for the ingenuity and enterpreneruship of rural folks and carpenter over there to show up...