Farm in Visuals 18-Apr-2017

Now that the water is available atleast through diesal generator, the farm is now relieved temperorily from starvation. People are visibly happy.  We must have burned atleast 30 liters by now at INR 55/liter, but satisfied. Atleast works out much cheaper than water tanker.

Land is getting prepared in patches for cultivation. The cement tank that was not used for all these days is now filled with water.  Paramu I was told was swimming in the tank. Good.

Kandan is scared to go near the Generator. That is his problem. He fears technology. he will not start the generator himself through the starter handle. He fears the noise, current and vibration.  Sometime he even fears Jeep, officers and strangers. Some time back when Electricity board officials visited he ran away from the farm (ha ha...) Subbu has tough time.

Subbu would go on leave for a week in first week of May to drop his family in in-laws place. I booked ticket for him. I will be visiting the farm same time with my family. Perhaps we may meet on last day 7th.

Today an awesome experiment was done. The redbanana bunch of 7.5 KG was packed and sent to Chennai - "Restore" an Organic Store. Earlier i wanted it to be sent to myself in Pune. But changed plans. Let me sell it in a professional store. This store is run by Ananta Sayanan and team. He introduced to Gopi who is coordinating for transport of vegetables from organic farmers.  Yesterday I set a concall with Subbu and Gopi. We agreed we will send this by courier @ 45/- kg to Chennai on experimental basis. It works out to be Rs. 350 for 30 Red bananas.  Comes out Rs. 10/- per banana for transport and is very costly. But worth experimenting. Next time around Gopi advised us to send by public transport - state bus and promised he will collect it at Koyambedu bus stand twice a week.

Rest in pictures that Subbu sent.  He has installed whats'up on his smart phone. But donot know how to handle it. Just installed.

Jasmine

JCB at work to dig hole for planting the nursary purchase that we did 2 months back.
Due to water scarcity this was in safe keeping away from farm.

Sapota trees have grown in size

Well, the generator that is saving us now. Pretty used one. But good condition.

Jasmine not flowering enough. Total 200 grams only. Due to water scarcity.
Now we need to increase the yield.

Subbu had imported mud from nearby pond for preparing pits for planting 

The panel board that Subbu had prepared.  The ammeter is important. After starting
the generator they have to wait for current to attain high.

The cement tank is getting filled.

What is the construction behind ? I am surprised.  It must be the half finished multipurpose
nursary, workshop and workplace.

Farm Update 07-April-2017

There had been many eventful days in the past 2 weeks since the time we decided to bring the Generator to the farm.

1. Subbu had accomplished the movement of machine from Perumalanji a small hamlet 10 Kms away into the farm. The generator is kept on farm over 2 car tyres.  It required some more work in getting the starter customised, fuse, panel and other setups using the local technician. In this summer the pump technicians are very busy.
   
2. Last week when the generator was started, I believe it was a great moment to see the ampere meter reaching 7.5 KV.   The temporary 5 HP submersible pump of Subbu's farm that was brought here seemed to have chocked because of long gap in using it.   Then it was repaired in moolakaraipatti where such pumps are overhauled.
   
3. Presently water is gushing with high pressure.  First day they ran for 1 hour, 2nd day 3 hours and so on.    So far they have burnt around 10 liters of diseal.
   
4. The parched land that did not see water for 2.5 years is now sucking water.  Everyone are happy to irrigate all the plants that was asking water all these days. I guess the atmosphere is charged at the farm.
   
5. Subbu is making arrangements to plant the saplings that we brought in Ramji Nursery two month ago when I was there in person.  Those saplings had been kept aside for want of adequate water.  JCB had been called for digging pits for coconut planting.  Fresh karandai soil from nearby pond had been brought along with some manure.
   
6. Today workers are arranged to plant them - around 200 plants in all.
   
7. The team will continue to work near the windpump tower to re-plant the red-banana suckers.  That soil had been wetted by water in the past 2 days.
   
8. Subbu told yesterday he would want to plant "nendran" variety of banana. This variety is used for making chips and is a wild variety native to Kerala. We must get the banana plants from nursery in kalakkadu.
   
9. The Jasmine is not yielding properly due to lack of water. Now with right amount of irrigation it should start showing results hopefully.

Subbu told the price of Jasmine is down in the market. I did not like that tone.  Every crop that we are going to grow will finally under-estimated by the market brokers. We cannot allow that to happen. So  I have instructed him to do two experiments.

a) Pack the red banana in small bunchers in carton box and send to Pune - a distance of 800 Kms through courier. Let me see how it arrives here. I want to give the exprience to Subbu on how to pack and forward to long distance.

b) Pack and send the Jasmine flowers in banana leave to Chennai city. I will arrange for its sale through some organic store.  Normally farmers are spraying toxic chemicals even for jasmine.  Whereas we are growing without any chemicals, I hope the smell must be much better and buyers must be able to buy at a cost.

Bottomline:    We have water now. We can start doing professional and careful farming.  We need to find innovative was to produce and sell.

The windpump can now be subjected to R&D. I want Subbu to dismantle the central rod system and replace with Steel cables that I had already planned and procured. After that we will do something to increase the water output.  Gradually we need to reduce the usage of Generator.

Light at the end of dark Tunnel !

There had been a rapid turn of events in the past few days !

Intense heat witnessed at the farm for 2 years now, farmers hybernating all around, and a sense of responsibility, an emptiness, the repeated cheat from electricity board  and deceit of rain clouds avoiding Nachankulam with shower had pushed Subbu to resolve on getting a generator set that a farmer in Perumalanji village seems not using. That farmer had given up 6 months back due to water table depleting in his well beyond viability.  Subbu called me with execution speed saying he wants it at once. I thought for a while.

Am I deviating from my resolve to only use sustainable energy sources?  Am I compromising for a slow speed diaseal engine ?  This is not new and last year also we were searching for an old one. It is now we are entering 6th year and have not started regular farming. All the while we have been doing many experiments including paddy and everything was successful. But my other objective of regularly running the farm, selling vegetables, providing employement etc had taken a set back. My own experiments on sustainable energy sources namely verticle windpump and concentrated solar energy is going slow.  More than everything else, I must empathise with the team's aspiration who are on ground zero working for me. They must come to work with hope...

I further enquired and found it is 7 KV Sunpower slow speed diasel engine with dynamo.  They can be decoupled later and I can use the dynamo perhaps for any Solar CSP experiments.  I can use the engine as standby coupled with a compressor for pumping water. It can be used to expand the cultivating area due to portability. I said Ok. Go ahead. The farmer had pitched 35K. Two year old and barely used for 6 months. Another 20K for 300 meters wire and flexible pipe and we should be having water flowing in our fields. We can actually start the agriculture as Summar is the best season.  The thought is mesmerising.

So today Subbu had put togather a team consisting of technician, 2 workers, Subbu himself & Kandan . They left in tracktor trailer and bike to Perumalanji to clinch the deal. They had carried with them three 2" pipes, ropes and chain pully to lift heavy weight.  Having tested its working and satisfied on the spot,  they have brought it to Valliyoor to get wire etc. If everything goes well they must reach the farm today evening and start. The actual 5HP submercible pump will be brought by Subbu from his home as he mentioned there is one spare.

Hoping the best.

Repeat problem in Windpump - a Solution

Just illustration

In the past 15 days itself the windpump had unwound its central sucking rod assembly twice. Each time it is painful to remove the entire pipe assembly 8 x 10 feet from inside the borewell along with a central sucking rod.  It costs for arranging labor, waste of time and loss of water for irrigation.

A sucking rod assembly is used to push and pull the pump plunger deep inside the borewell. The windpump will push and pull the rod assembly on every cycle of rotation in verticle direction. This creates a kind of friction and sound. An 80 feet rod assembly should weigh a cool 30 kg.

If the tower is not aligned in straight line to the bore hole - which is the case in our site, then we are in permanent trouble.  As per my estimate we are 6"inches off the mark to the centre. Therefore (i believe) during continuous operation, the wind turbine that swivels during change of direction of wind, unwinds the sucker rods even though there is smooth ball and socket joint at the nek.  The rods get disconnected anywhere deep inside or above ground level randomly.

Typical Sucker rod, goes at centre of water pipe

Since we have pump at 80 feet, there are 8 links and due to over usage the threads would have worn out.  We do have replaced one by one, welded and tried all tricks, but no use.  The power of wind is very high.

Now for a brilliant idea !.  I have decided (and take some risk) to replace the 8 x 10 feet sucker rods with single steel wire.  After debating for few rounds with Subbu I decided to go for thin stay wire thickness steel wire. Subbu wanted to go for thumb thick wire thinking that will not bend.

The thin stay wire will pass thorugh the 2" water pipe assembly to entire length, say 80 feet and get connected to the plunger assembly of pump.  My theory is (if it goes well), the downward movement of the pump will happen through gravity.  The weight of the last pump plunger assembly and one connecting sucker rod should be enough to keep the wire straight. During downward stroke will the pump operate without the wire bending ?. I guess yes. Because the downward friction is only due to a feet of water against which plunger should travel inside the tube. This will be offset by the weight of the one rod purposefully left connected.

illustration

So we are at action. Subbu had purchased 25 meters of steel wire rope at 3.5K INR at Tirunelveli.  He had also purchased a rod, cut into small piece and welded a ring o connect the wire.  He will be doing this experiment today / tomorrow.  Above the tower he will again loop the wire. But he has forgotton, taken it light or ignored purchasing a pully. I wanted the wire to go through a pully wheel that can guide the wire and keep it dead centre.  He will realise that soon.

What is running in my mind ?

My Farm is dry. Whenever I call Subbu (just now I finished a conversation) i can sense the despair in his voice. As usual there is no rain in our place for several months now inspite of the fact that Tamil Nadu is experiencing heavy rains in some parts.  Subbu feels ashamed to tell me that we are buying water to survive plants. Quite often. That is the fact. He says most of the expenditure is going towards "purchasing" water. Village born, village grown men donot like spending for water. Successive Governments have failed to develop irrigation projects. There is rampant loot and plundering of natural resources all over the state driving the water tables below.   Vested interests are in power. Water is their main cash. The adjscent perinnial river has been leased out to Cocola company and other commercial factories for bribe. The other thing that is plundered is the River Sand and granite.  Mountains are shaved. Rivers are scratched with heavy machineary.

Coming back, we do have water inside the borewell. Luckily there are crescent shaped ponds from oriental times around in our place that store water during rainy season which lasts 1 month. These ponds are dry for most of the time, but I guess they are keeping the water tables recharged. At 100 feet we have water. But no means to pump them except for the lonely windpump.  The 2nd bore well is mounted with manual water pump. It is too hot and dry to do any outdoor activity. I cannot ask people to pump water. Labor costs money. Tracktor load full of water costs a lot. We need to survive with just hope.

There are two hopes.  One is the electricity. We are waiting. Today, tomorrow it should come. We have passed several months waiting for that. Last week, the electricity board authorities summoned Subbu twice to Nanguneri to load the electricity poles. But he waited till evening can came back. Either of the officers are not there. But there is hope we will get the installation done in 10 days time. Post that I have to buy a submercible and start the actual farm work that for which I was waiting for the past several years.  I wanted to avoid electricity, but cannot help it till the below happens.

The second hope is my own initiative of developing verticle windpump.  Backhome at Pune, I have finished the rotor that is smoothly rotating for many days now. I have also finished the gear, this time using bevel gear. Just last week that was done using a lathe shop and another welding shop.  It has come out well. Now I need to customise the motorcycle chain to drive the shaft.  The third stage for this would be a pump. But for my farm, I can straight away start using the wind energy to drive the hand operated manual pump. I am in parallel drawing each stage of the windpump for fabrication in bigger size.  Subbu is waiting along with another shop owner in Valliyoor for my drawings. Some of the material is already ready.  This should come up in a month's time.

The gear assembly. First run.  Details https://www.facebook.com/groups/519702174896073/

The original ABS windpump is failing very often. That is a sour point.  The links are unscrewing during operation.  In the last one week twice it stopped working because of de-linking of the joints.  Subbu has lost count of how many times he had fixed it now.  It has become a routine to hire two labors, draw out the entire pipe assembly out of the borewell, fix the twist and insert again.  Today i believe 3 of the rods had lost the grip and he had purchased new rods from Vailliyoor. There is no choice. This windpump is the only source of water.

Farm update 10-Feb-2017 in Visuals

It has been a very long gap since I updated the status of farm.

There are 4 subjects that I need to cover that are pending

1. Demonitization and its effect on Farming
2. Pro Jallikattu protest and how it will help farming
3. Complete Drought like situation with no water and climate change
4. Catchup time spent on developing verticle windpump lost due to above reasons.

I shall write the above topics one by one in coming days and insert it in timelines. But before that a quick visual update on the farm. Yes I visited the farm last week only and took these snaps.  Though I could spend only few hours there, (I went to meet my mother and had other domestic works) I did accomplish quite a lot of work.

Major notable ones are
a) Initiating building of a toilet in the farm.
b) Purchasing new trees and plants from Ramji Nursary, Nagarcoil and transporting them.
c) Explaining and initiating building of a verticle windpump at the farm based on POC done back in Pune.
d) Team building. Had lunch in the farm prepared by the staff.

This mountain on the way to the farm is being eaten away by vested interests

Cooking at the farm.  Simple food for workers

First time I am seeing flowers of Lemon

The trees are gaining height. One day this tree will form canopy over
the seats

This one has recovered from bug attack. With no chemicals used.

Seeing the success of Coconut tree growth, I have brought few more (25) of desi variety. Now we have
all kinds of varieties,  hybrid,  red, tall, short as specimens.

Look at how some unidentied bug has cut the leaves uniformly. pehaps it would have eaten when it was tender

Lemon is fruting

The good old windpump working. Subbu in foreground

Few redbanana trees near the wind pump tower has survived. They are very tall and looks wild.
Has strong survival tendancy. I asked subbu to multiply this as we got these with great difficulty
from Tirumurthy farm.

This is the reality. With no water.  Just managing only the border trees.

The base of windpump.  This is bore hole from where water is sucked. There are water leaks due to pipes becoming old

The vettiver to the side has well grown and flowered. It is becoming dry. Donot know what next or what to do with the vettiver which has not established. Ideally I wanted this to be transplanted to the pond. But there is no water nor
interest now.

Beautiful combination of bogan villa in the fence

Fence on left and few red banana trees that has escaped drought on right.

Some bird has laid eggs on pine tree. Subbu said this is wild dove. Small eggs at chest level. Daring !

Hope to gree these after we get power supply.

Jasmine plants. This is the only productive commercial crop that I have.  It grow well with less water

Jasmine closeup

One corner of the pond. Rarely I have taken photo from this angle. To the right is eastern fence side. Not fertile soil. Here is where we need to plant Neem and eucalyptus.

On the infertile soil there are two Banyan trees that are planted. Heartening to see
they are growing.

One corner of plot.  Waiting for rain.  Ploughed and soil loosened.

Having lunch with friends in farm, cooked there 

Some Update 16-12-2016

There had been a spate of things past 2 months that kept me away from the blog.

Demonitisation was one very major event that happened affecting all the 130 crore population of India starting 8th November.  I was in no mood to write anything since then as I was busy tracking news items literally every hour that is still changing.  More about that later.....

The farm is in good shape. Subbu is at his best.  After a long spell of dry weather, the farm had received little showers 10 days back. Using that  the farm had been ploughed. Without telling me, Subbu had gone ahead and purchased 400 nursary plants of Jasmine teaming with other farmers in neighbourhood from the city of Nagapatinam.  I guess he had planted them.

There is no rain now.  The rain season that was supposed to be ON is no where to be seen. There had been two cyclones hitting southern peninsula, but they crossed shore around Chennai, north of the farm at 600 kilometers.

Farmers are at cross roads and are anticipating drought this year.  This is 3rd consequtive year without rains.  It is a challenge.

I want to take this challenge.  I told Subbu to work out a scheme as follows;
a) Go to nearby market and observe.
b) Due to demonitisation (removal of 86% of currency from the market by the Government), there is scarcity of cash.  Agriculture / farmers are dumping at the yards at throw away prices as they cannot afford.  But this is temperory. very soon, with this bitter feedback they will restrict cultivation. which means the price will sky rocket.
c) look for opportunity what vegetables that can be grown at this season which others are not growing.
d) Let us employ few who are out of work due to demonitisation.  Let us create some jobs.
e) Let us grow something. If it fails also ok.

I have not spoken to him for few days now.

Farm Visual Update 21-Oct-2016

The Farm has not got its shower since 11 months now.   Whatever be the climate in India, the local climate is dry and drought as it had been in the past.   Rain was there even some 6 kilometers from my farm, but not a drop here.  Here are the visuals that I persuaded Subbu to send (Otherwise he was reluctant to send me the sight of dry farm).

Fact is fact.  Sinc the pictures are self explanatory, I am not writing any commentary for anything except few slides that cannot be understood without my comment. However I must congratulate and be grateful to Subbu to have kept all the trees with borrowed water, stolen water, purchased water and stored water. The life is struggle and it keeps going........ You must contrast these trees with the die-hard juliflora weed which itself has dried outside the farm. The juliflora is supposed to live in near zero water conditions.

The beautiful seating arrangment is now having a setting

Tree is in shape of a tree finally

Not even a blade of grass.  Except trees which are tended carefully

On the way to mud pond

These coconut trees have not come up well. They are 2nd batch purchased from valliyoor.  The earlier batch
purchased form Ramji Nursary, Nagarcoil is excellent. Now we know where to purchase from

Jasmine 1st batch. Glad the bushes have become big.

Jasmine 2nd batch in famine

Just outside the farm, the shrubs are so dry

The new borewell is covered with an old hand pump. This will be where verticle windpump will
be built. Currently our folks are pumping water in hot sun. I asked subbu to construct shade
He had purchased the knotted coconut leaves, but lack of support kept is pending

Dry and no growth except casurina.  These trees are drinking purchased water  and is a mistake

Windpump at backdrop. Which is sustaining all living things for the past 11 months silently working to maximum capacity.

2nd seating arrangement. Otherwise for water this should be greenest of places.

Near the tower.  All banana trees have gone.

The Red banana. Atlast one or two have escaped hard summar. This was procured from Thirumurthy farm near Coimbatore

Banana used to be here

Around the farm. This is the reality. My farm is an oasis.