Farm Update 26-Oct-2015 - Fragrance everywhere in the farm

Looking the success of Jasmine plant growth even in drought conditions,  It was decided earlier to expand the jasmine plot.  The other reason is, the existing 50 odd plants are giving only 200 to 400 grams of flower per day. This quantity is not sufficient for taking to market. Presently it is going waste.

Presently there is enough rain in the farm. Windpump is also giving more water. There is no scarcity and there is excess water.  Now is the time to plan all activities.

jasmine plant at Farm

Subbu had ventured to the town of Rameshwaram, the birth place of Dr. Abdul Kalam to get the Jasmine saplings.  This jasmine variety I am told is very special.  He had brought 500 of them @ Rs. 5/- each along with a companion in Bus. He had to stay overnight.

Today with help of JCB, another 75 holes have been dug.  Each hole will hold 4 saplings togather to create a bush.  Earlier we made a mistake of plating just one plant per pit.  Someone had advised to plant 4 at a time. It makes sense.  Jasmine is a bush variety.

Already the plantation has started with help of temperory workers.

FarmYard Manure Purchased earlier was waiting
for this season. Some quantity
will be put in each of the holes.

Subbu is going to Thirumala on pilgrimage for 4 days this week end. All other activities will be postponed for his arrival. He is taking Paramu and Kandan along with him for pilgrimage. The main event will be tonsure for his son.  On his coming back we need to do the following

a) Purchase additional 15 coconut saplings and plant them near the mud pond.  The coconut is growing well. Boosted by Panjagavya, it is the best plant suited for the soill

b) We also need to plant some more fruit trees, say 10 more

The existing Stock.  Not a bad growth with good care.

c) The space around the cement tank is not fertail. The banana crop has failed. I asked to clear that place and put navadhanya (9 grains) for fertility. But subbu has other plans. He has some assignment to be given to the lady workers  who will take charge in his absence. That includes planting bitter gourd, snake gourd, cucumber and onion around the water tank.

d) meanwhile I want the ladies to plant Ponnanganni Spinach (Alternanthera sessilis, Dwarf Copperleaf) around the resting place to prevent soil erosion.  We have seen this spinach grows faster and needs very less care. It will also be nutritious and is idle for arresting soil erosion. I hope so.

e) On the windpump experiments on fixing the new gadget on experimental basis to pump more water, I asked him to hold till he completes his tour. Let it be BAU activity for now.

***

Farm update 17-October-2015 - Innovation at Farm

I guess Paramu's device
must look like this. This should amplify
the strokes

Innovation at the Farm :  More Water 
The water harvest using Wind pump is more than satisfactory.  With slight wind, there is more water that is getting pumped. The new foot valve or increased pipe diameter or a combination of all has done wonders.

Not stopping at this, we want to further experiment more.  This time, Subbu and Paramu has gone  ahead with some design which they say will work.  We discussed this during our visit to the farm. We were on a bus to Palaymkottai when I sketched the Figure 1 to explain my mind.  Now Subbu and Paramu claims to have distilled a thought and has visted a workshop in Valliyoor to fabricate.  I sent some money for expenses.  Subbu says, the design is ready and they will try tomorrow.

My guess is they must have designed as in Figure 2.  the deviation from verticle will be handled by a ball bearing that they say have been purchased.  Let me wait for results...

Cropping

Meanwhile I reminded Subbu that we must do farming !.   Well there is some slight drizzle in the farm which has made the climate cool. However it is not sufficient to plough the field. Neverthless we need to prepare ourselves for coming season.

a) I have asked him to prepare the land for Groundnut sowing
b) We need to purchase Jasmine Samplings from Rameshwaram as was discussed earlier.  Subbu will travel there in few days time to bring about 100 of them in the Bus.
c) I also wanted him to look for some grown up trees instead of small saplings to speed up the fence tree plantation
d) We also need some coconut trees and Subbu has already identified where it should go in the farm.

My guess is that if it starts raining, the water will be sufficient to go for next 3 to 4 months. meanwhile windmill should produce excess water that will be stored and sustained for another 6 months.  By which time I must come with some Solar Concentrator apparatus.

***

The Phase I Change is success - More water now

The new pump after installation seems to be successful. Though the air stands still even now, from whatever small wind that was there, the pump seems to be working smooth and draws more water.  Now we are ready to go to next step.

The next step is to increase the travel length of the central transmission rod.  I guess this is done by increasing the length of eccentric that is rotating in this video. I consulted and given assignments to local guy Paramu and ABS company engineers, with different ideas  But I have different plans if they donot work.  Need to go back to basics.....

Meanwhile there were some visitors to the farm from Bangalore.   Deepak Reddy and his father along with uncle had driven all the way from Bangalore by road to see the windpump. They are in the process of finalising their purchase with ABS.

Here are photos that Deepak sent to me.  It is nice to see the farm from someone's lens.  Note how the sky looks.  Clean and Deep blue as if from space.  This is bad news for having no rains. But good news for me to implement my concentrated solar project.

Visit to the farm 27-Sep-2015 - Part 3

The pump and Filter are being unpacked.

They are being assembled like a train.

Chainblock being tested

The tall windpump standing still

Green Paint decorating the water tank frame

Subbu and Kandan assembling the chain block.

Short Rehersal of lifting the old pump using chain block.  We did not have 2" extra clamp. Shops were closed.
By that time, Paramu's Son had minor accident (scratches) in bike. So he left. We re-assembled everything back and
postponed the activity.

Well, we were shifting the chain block to workplace on shoulders. Front is Kandan.
Rear was me also taking photograph

Cinematic View of the Wind Pump

Another beautiful view

The team has priority to save these trees

The elegant machinery at the wind pump behind the propellers. I have something to share in my next post on increasing
the water output.

Visit to the farm 27-Sep-2015 - Part 2

Field after Banana Harvest.  The mother trees are left to feed the suckers
as there is no water.  The suckers will be replanted once it rains.

The fence trees are looking healthy.  But they share water for maintenance

The other Banana Patch is dried due to water scarcity

Another view. Needs Patience

There is nothing you can do now to save them.  We need either rain or more water.

The priority now is to save these few jasmine plants and multiply them.

Some Solace

Natural manure is ready for jasmine. Waiting for one rain.

The experiment with Tomato is a flop

We could save the Vettiver atlast after another courier mishandling and delay
atleast it is growing and we can replicate this near the pond

Good but not good enough to sell. These are being given as feed to birds.

Visit to the farm 27-Sep-2015 - Part 1

Visiting our own farm is always a thrill. It generally starts with great expectation, eagerness followed by some disappointment, reconciliation then some encouragement and moment of triumph and proudness when we part.  The thoughts will linger for long time to come in memory and photos.

Last week I had been to my farm.  Had some domestic work which I combined with one day farm visit.  Preparation for this visit however started two weeks back.

The following were the main accomplishments;

a) The 83mm new pump sent by ABS was delivered after chasing the TCI-XPS logistics.   In the so called most modern Logistics company, they were shifting the consignment back and forth between Kanyakumari and Salem without delivering en-route. I wonder how the courier operates without any proper coordination. At  last We intercepted the consignment on highways at-last and brought to the farm.

This pump is now installed in my absence and seems to be working fine. But full potential is unknown as there is no wind.

b) The chain block was put to use when I was there.  It is very convenient to lift very heavy objects with just one person.  Very nice purchase.  Subbu was smiling all the way.

c) Presented the team with some tea shirts and incentives for others to buy new cloths. We made black coffee at the farm and had good meeting chat.

The rest in Visuals.

Every Farm visit starts with Worshipping God.  Sastha is in front of my farm and is now having new Roof.  He 

By and Large the farm is dry. There is no greenary. Even the toughest of the weeds are dried out

Another view from the road (in front of Sastha Temple).

The mud pond with new fence made from iron angle rods and matching GI wire with sleeves

Pond waiting for water.  The inlet and outlets are cemented and ready.  There is a rock in the left which cannot be flattened.  I am not satisfied with JCB work. Anyway....... Once it rains, hope the mud will settle down.

The coconut is growing well

The compost tank and the nursary are unutilised still. No focus on that now.  Water is the priority.  There is
no agro activity to generate biomass.

The resting place or kutir is very useful.  This is the meeting place

Situation is worsening further.. There is draught at Farm

Situation is worsening further.. There is draught at Farm

Subbu was expressing his anger and frustration.  Reason there is no rain.  No rain for the past many days, stopped counting how much.  Today the frustration is because the ground water has further fallen down. He said he spent some time atop the water tank near the wind pump to see the output.  Sometime the output is very small even when the windpump is rotating fast.  After 5 minutes it is giving more water. Again less water.

Reason, due to reduced water at the borewell, it takes time for water to seepage.  This is bad sign.

The vegetation around the farm is so dry that it takes one match stick to initiate wild fire.
to mitigate the receding water, we want to increase the pipe length to 150 feet. That means purchase 5 more piples of 2" dia anticipating new pump installation.

Meanwhile our new pump sent by ABS is still on its way.  I am betting my hopes on increased water through that.

Funny guys the courier TCI-XPS are;  The consignment has taken the below route.  From Kanyakumari the guy told it has gone to Tirunelveli whereas it should have been delivered en-route.  But Tirunelveli guy says it is heading towards SALEM again.  Why ?  because the pump was loaded deep inside the long truck. There is 9 tonne of material after that. Funny !. Guys in the delivery business cannot give such excuse. Anyway he promised he will deliver tomorrow at Nanguneri.

This is the magic of Linear Programming Problem and advanced Logistics planning by modern men.

Consignment number : 688734211  (TCI-XPS)
From Station To Station Despatch Date Time Arrival Date Time
XVSH (VASHI) XMBH (MUMBAI-HUB) 16-SEP-2015 20:28 16-SEP-2015 23:20
XMBH (MUMBAI-HUB) XSLH (SALEM-HUB) 17-SEP-2015 15:35 19-SEP-2015 23:00
XSLH (SALEM-HUB) XKKI (KANYAKUMARI) 20-SEP-2015 18:02 21-SEP-2015 13:56
XKKI (KANYAKUMARI) XTNV (TIRUNEVELI) 22-SEP-2015 11:53 --

Meanwhile the chain block has reached Valliyoor. Subbu took delivery of that from KPN travels. He was satisfied as it was so heavy. It can withstand any weight.  Good purchase. He said same material in tirunelveli was not that strong and was also costing twice.

Chain block can be had from coimbatore : Sudhir Jaiswal 09843089006 (Fine Chain Centre), finebearingco@yahoo.co.in

The effort is going to be effortless lifting the pump

One of the sour point is lifting the pipe assembly from borewell manually everytime you need to access the pump or repair something.  It requires 4 people to pull the pipe assembly of around 100 feet with a rope.

Pipes, inside rod, pump and water will weigh over 300 Kg to 500 Kg.

 Last time on my visit to the farm,  I had purchased a pully fastened to the tower for pulling the rope effortlessly. Still it requires two employees and two hires costing around 1000/- on labor for every incident.  And the "pull" also will be rough and may hurt the pipe or people.

In order to reduce the manual effort and make it more easy, I have decided to go for chain block.

A chain is a kind of geared pully which will lift heavy objects.  For our application we wanted to go for 3 Ton.  Actually 1 Ton would be sufficient. But I reasoned that once we have this device, it can be used in future for any kind of material that we want to lift. Say a Cow !

A 3 Ton chain block with 3 meter lift would be around INR 8.5K and is ordered from Coimbatore.  This will reach the farm just in time when our new pump from Navi Mumbai also will reach.  That should be comfortable for Subbu.

Farm Update 18-Sep-2015

It is now countless days have passed with no rain in sight.   Nearest rain was some 25 kilometers away. Lot of bird sanctuaries around also have not got any rain.  All the farm planning has gone for a toss.

I told Subbu "Don't worry.  The days are not far off. Instead of cribbing no rain, only sun shine, we will be rejoicing on Sun Shine" Yes we will harness the solar energy through our new project on concentrating that.  I briefed him how we are going to do that in affordable way.

He mentioned that when Grid current comes, all issues will be solved. I explained him what's wrong with Grid, Nuclear or thermal currents.   Why Renewable energy is superior.

I told him that after all hardships, still when windmill is running, we are getting "FREE" energy.  He agreed. Yes sir. if everything works, we are getting one drum per hour (1000 liters) without any spend.

Still we are buying water very often due to prolonged dry spell.

Well, where is the water going ?

1.  Still casurina is drinking more water. Without water it is drying up even after those plants have become adults.
2. Some leftover banana is there.  The primary banana plant is not irrigated. The young suckers are actually feeding on mother plant and it is left at that.  The remaining banana has become sick. They need to be removed. The red banana is not growing that much.
3. Most of water is spent on fruit trees, coconut and jasmine.

The pursuit is ON.....

Kandan and Bicycle

"Has Kandan learned to ride the bicycle at last ?" -  I asked. I thought all of our compulsive advise would have worked.

"No sir, No way.  His wife is riding the cycle. His son is owning a bike. But Kandan always "walks" his cycle.  He even lifted up on his bicycle on shoulders to cross the fields by walk"

Well, that is Kandan. You cannot change anyone unless he has interest in anything."  said Subbu.

So Kandan feels cycle is a burden.

A bold step to increase Water Output

My depiction of the new pump
inside the borewell

It is clear, that if I need to increase my cultivation I need more water.  One way is the maximise the productivity of the existing pump.   Earlier I attempted to replace the 1.25" pipe with 2" pipe and failed.

This time we are making a bold decision.   With friendly engineers from ABS, we have decided we will do the following;;

New Pump scheduled to reach farm.
The first one is a filter and the other
is the pump

1.  Replace the existing pump which has 200 mm depth with another one which has 350 mm travel depth.  This will also increase the bore from 62mm to 82mm.

My estimate is as is it will give 30% more water.

2. Once this stabilises, now we need to increase  the vertical  movement of   rod assembly at the windmill by replacing a crank shaft.  That will utilise the 350 mm depth of the pump to a large extent. Currently the verticle movement is only 100mm.  We need to make it atleast 200 or 250 mm.  That will give 4 times more water than what I am getting.

ABS is ready to do both the changes.  But they are doubting if due to increased load, the rod assembly will bend.  I am confident it will not.

decided to take a risk. After all what is life without risk.

Some Progress in Experiments on Concentrated Solar Energy

I have achieved some significant maturity in my Balcony experiments on Concentrated Solar Energy.

The story :   As already explained, I am in dire need of some energy source for the farm.  Wind has limitations. Beyond that we have plenty of sun shine. Why don't we use it ?  The solar cell is in the hands of business mafia and is unaffordable.  It costs over 6 lacs per 5 KV which is too much for a fragile piece of thing that may work hardly for 3 years.  (Though they promise life untill eternity, i have serious doubts about service and support on cheap Chinese panels and corrupt dealers).

Well I have decided i will pursue CSP.  this is a failure in many places. I wonder why.  On a closer look I find businessmen have discarded it because they cannot make money. Or they have wantedly made it so much costly that even Governments cannot afford to setup. That is why it is failure.

It is our endevour to bring this cheap source to common man somehow.  Small experiments have began.

Today I achieved 300+ temperature using the dish.  That is the limit my thermometer can show.  Inside the tiffen Box Target, the salt was having temperature of 180Dec C.  Very good enough to do some useful work. Even with half the mirrors i could still get 133 deg C in the morning Sun. What else you want ?

My balcony experiments are aimed at choosing the right method to concentrate solar energy. I will continue till i get confidence to invest in large setup.

Detailed progress on Solar experiments are being posted in my facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1634868576725613/

Farm Update 04-Nov-2015

1.  The windpump is working smooth for the past many days.  The new solution has really worked. There is normal wind also. I believe we are getting between 1000 to 4000 liters of water perday. That is sufficient to maintain crops irrigated in round-robin fashion.

2.  We are still waiting for the rains to come to make the next move.   We need to procure and plant Jasmine plants.  Subbu said he heard Rameshwaram Jasmine is the best.  He has ordered 100 saplings from there. However they will supply only when they get atleast one shower.

3. Painting has been done for all the structures like Gate fence and room with green paint.  This is to keep the team occupied.

4. The shadenet has fallen in the wind.  It is torn also.  Without this the nursary will not work. It is an eyesore to see a broken nursary.   I have ordered for one more bundle of Shadenet 50 meters costing Rs. 2100 including courier from Coimbatore. It will reach tomorrow. Post that Subbu team will mend the nursary.

Somehow the team is not showing interest in nursary, compost pit or any such non-traditional things.

****

Farm Pond has a fence

Farm Pond has a fence

It was decided not to leave the mud pond as is.  It will be highly slippery when it rains. The water level will be unknown and will be a potential threat for any stray cattle, children or even regular workers.  Even if anyone falls into the 6 feet deep pond, due to mud and no grip it will be difficult to come out.

Subbu said it will cost unnecessarily and was postponing my proposal. I insisted that we do put a fence whatever be the cost.  Finally I hatched a plan to put a low cost fence  using iron angle rods. We will put only 4 feet stumps.  One feet inside the mud and three feet outside.  My idea is this should act as marker, prevent small animals, cow and human from trespassing into the pond. It is not meant for any other use.

The steel rods come at 10 feet lengh. They will be cut to size,  punctured with holes to pull the wire through.  We will get plastic coated GI steel wires to make it look nice. Now a days we get strong GI wires coated with colorful plastic coating for durability.

We need 12+12+3+3 rods at 10 feet distance each.  It will be directly hammered into the ground. Our own workers with some helping hands will do this.

I heard they have completed the job and looks neat now.  Safety ensured.