Ponni variety of paddy for harvest

Shri Annadurai hails for a humble village of Umayalpuram in Musuri Taluk, Tiruchy District. He hails from a traditional farming family and regularly cultivates his paddy field of about ten acres. Of course, he is one of the few farmers who is privileged to have a well irrigated land round the year as he has his own water supply from well maintained wells.

He has been independently farming for more than three decades. He has all along been cultivating the farm following the inorganic route advised by Agricultural Universities, Government Agriculture Department and distributors of fertilizers and insecticides ever since the green revolution. All he achieved was to line the pockets of distributors of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and could save very little for himself due to the high input costs and declining yeild.

In September, 07 he came across a line of hope in a message (was carried in the Tamil Agricultural fortnightly PASUMAI VIKATAN) which explained the concept of Zero Budget Natural Farming. The magazine had announced a conference to educate the farmers of Tamil Nadu on the Zero Budget Natural Farming propounded by Shri Subash Palekar. He enrolled for the conference and at the conclusion of the conference vowed to practice Naturalfarming following the technique of Shri Subash Palekar.

He went back to his village and began preparing two acres for paddy cultivation following Shri Subash Palekar method.

On preparing the land he applied 200 litres per acre of Jeevamirutham in his land and transplanted 25 to 28 day old “Ponni” paddy saplings in the traditional method planting. He successfully followed the application of Jeevamurutham, neem astra, Agni astra and hormone treatment. The schedule he followed is given below for the benefit of paddy farming community:-

1. The normal age of “Ponni” variety of paddy for harvest as per Shri Annadurai is 140 days.
2. His Saplings on transplantation was about 28 days old. He pumped in 200 litres per acre of jeevamurtha along with water before transplantation ;
3. His first spray was 5 litres of Jeevamurtha mixed with 100 litres of water on the 33rd day; (28+5)
4. He pumped in 200 litres per acre of jeevamurtha for the second time on 43rd day (i.e. 28 + 15 days);
5. He had a second spray of 10 litres of Jeevamurtha mixed in 150 litres of water per acre on the 48th day;
6. He pumped in 200 litres per acre of Jeevamurtha for the third time on the 58th day (ie.43+15 days);
7. He sprayed Neem Astra on the 63rd day though there was no indication of any pests as a proactive measure (Palekar recommends spraying only if there is any incidence of pests in the field. When there is no incidence of pest he says there is no need to spray any herbal pesticide at all);
8. around 85 to 90th day he found some incidence of “Kadhir Naval Poochi” (Ear head peg) and “Elai Puzhu” (cut worms) and hence he applied on the 95th day Agni Astra; This controlled the infestation completely;
9. Paddy started maturing by 110th day when he applied 5 litres of sour buttermilk mixed with 100 litres of water per acre as hormonal treatment to prevent shedding of grains and to increase the weight of the grain.
10. He harvested the grain around 145 days when he achieved 2100 kilos of paddy per acre with no inorganic input what so ever.