Myharvest Farms Webinar

Stalin 8220043501 Archana 8220043502

Day 1

Revived a pond first in 9 days. Filled in 4 days of rainfall

On leased land, grow short term crops. Vegetables, Lentils, Short term fruits - papaya, banana.

Land

Worry about the soil, growing history, crops in the region, internet, threats, adjacent land, safety & stay, leased owner, fence, chemicals used before, electricity Ask the local folks what grew here. How does water work here. Does it stagnate? Does it dry quickly.

Based on the growing history, then decide what you want to grow.

💡 Natural farming concept - Grow multiple crops and poultry

Plan for a fence, but don't invest too much. You should have a border with trees, live fencing will work. Timber trees can be planted - bamboo, neem, some fruit trees. Look for indigenous trees. (long term trees)

Step 1 While starting a land, plant a lot of pulses in the land. Let them dry and become manure. Plough them and leave the soil like that. They'll all decompose in 4-6 months and make the soil very rich. You're not doing it for the harvest, but to improve land quality.

Abraham licoln - I'd spend 80% of my time sharpening my axe, 20% time cutting the tree.

Why do you need a cow? World's best manure is cow dung. Let the cows graze as well, they'll happily leave dung behind.

Step 2 Prepare your land. A rotavator will plough your land. (Rotavators come in 4 blade, 5 blade, 9 blade) Then you can level the land if you need. The local horticulture department will give it you on rent.

Step 3 Create beds and trenches (like a chocolate bar). Add cow dung / vermicompost / manure on the beds. 4-6 tractor loads per acre for the first time. (1800 for cow dung, 2000 for goat dung per load, vermicompost is costlier)

The raised bed is great for greens as the soil has become soft.

Make sure the dung is powdered. 2-3 months old dung (composted dung)

Dimensions - 4ft breadth, length as per land size. 2 plants adjacent to each other.

Step 4 - Irrigation In their farm, they have sprinkler, drip and flood irrigation. We don't have the rain bores though.

We use sprinkler for dense plants. Drip where spacing is there.

They grow marigolds between tomatoes for pest aversion, more bees plus some extra money :) They're a natural pest repellant.

They use drop irrigation for brinjals. The yellow leaves fall down themselves and improve land. (natural farming concept)

They also grow a lot of climbers and creepers. Ropes will make sure that the fruits don't touch the soil and not develop color.

Seeds & Growing Cycle

Most of planting happens around July, August in south india. Don't sow too much in April, May

Consider growing a lot of greens. The market ones are really bad. Farmers spray pesticides daily for all 25 days. Grow herbs, medicinal plants (lemongrass, etc).

Seeds here - ladyfingers, sesame, cucumbers (pink seed - avoid this as they're coated with chemicals)

Go for native, heirloom seeds

What should you grow

Seeds - black seed is amaranth, red one is rajma, the one in the hand is bottle gourd, next to rajma is papaya, below rajma is water melon, last is corn

Q&A

  • Monkeys don't affect lady fingerz, brinjals, cluster beans, greens. They'll pluck tomatoes etc for sure.
  • 1 acre = 100 cents
  • Should seeds be dried before planting? Put it in cowdung and put it. No need to dry
  • What's an initial investment expected for an organic farm - first 3 years is an investment. Returns will be in the 4th and 5th year. Initial investment for a 2 acre farm for 6 months would be (infra, irrigation, ploughing etc) would be 2 lacs. 1 acre would be 1.25-1.5lacs. Labour cost is 8k per month for full time people. Operating cost is about 10k per month (weed removal, infra, eb bill, logistics).
  • After leveling once, every season (dec-jun, jul-dec) we plough the land. Don't use rotavator every time, don't use cow dung. Mainly to control weeds.
  • 1 acre can support about 20 families for veggies alone. For rice, pulses etc we need more land.
  • For clay soil - you can grow any crop except the citrus plants. They won't give very good harvest. Good for nutrients, but weeds grow very fast.
  • Kitchen - try radish (good to see it come up from the soil), greens (grows faster in a kitchen garden than in a farm due to us using cocopeat & compost). Radish, lady finger grow throughout the year. Succession planning is important.
  • India has multiple agro climatic regions. (Here, 9 months to grow veggies and 3 months has heavy rains or is summer)
  • Stopped wasting food given the effort it takes to grow these. Do composting at home as well.

Day #2

Until 1970 we had 1,10,000 varieties of rice. Now we have 6000 varieities. There's a guy called debal deb who's preserving 300+ variety of rice seeds.

Mint prefers shade, grows from stem. Needs a lot of moisture. Water it twice a day Spinach needs full sun. Grow from seed. Grow carrots and radishes. Very small seeds. Put them 1 inch deep. Pluck it 3-4 days after it pops out of the soil. Seeds which float are bad. Use the ones which sink Saving seeds: Mix seeds with charcoal. Use them within 3-6 months.

BIg seeds go deeper. Tiny seeds can just be sprinkled.

Fertilizers

  1. Compost. Mix charcoal as it repels insects.
    1. Take a tank you want to make compost in
    2. Add a layer of soil
    3. Add your green waste
    4. Add a layer of soil
    5. Soak Soapnuts and then do something...
    6. Keep making layers, end with a layer of soil at the top
    7. Add jaggery/buttermilk in 1-2 weeks
  2. Fresh Cow dung
  3. Rice water
  4. Fruit peels
  5. Jaggery mixed cow dung water

They use panchgavya and jeevamrit.

Good and bad bugs

The non-veg bugs are better. The goat is going to tell us how to identify pests.

Goats eat a lot of leaves, but they're very selective. They consciously don't eat 3 types of leaves. These are needed for pest repellants. They dont eat:

  1. Leaves which have milk (papaya, mango, badam, onion)
  2. Leaves which have a very strong smell (Lemon, Tulsi, Mint, Karpuravalli)
  3. Leaves with a bitter taste (Neem leaves/seed/fruit, Guava, Pomegranate, Custard apple etc) (Although goats eat neem leaves, but neem has a chemical which irretates pests)

Pest repellant (No pesticide, we use pest repellants) Almost like Dashparni Ark

  • Take 10 types of leaves. (3 milk, 3 small, 3 bitter)
  • Crush them
  • Add cow urine and fresh cow dung
  • Add chilli, garlic, turmeric, ginger, drumstick leaves
  • Keep it aside for 30 days. Cover it so insects don't lay eggs in it
  • Rotate it using a stick.
  • You can use it for upto 6 months

How to use

  • Dilute with water and spray
  • 150l diluted solution for an acre
  • Spray after 4 or 5oclock or before 7am. (sun should not be very hot, as it might burn the leaves)
  • Once in 3-4 days for cabbage, brinjal etc. Once in 10 days for plants which are affected less

Don't overdo it as it might harm plants also.

3G Solution (for 15 litre tank): Chilly 25 gms Garlic 25 gms Ginger 12 gms Cow Urine 500ml Water 14.5 litres

Cow urine mixes the things better.

Yelow mosaic virus in ladysfinger. It's a virus attack. It attacks very fast. Pluck the plant and burn it. The only solution is turmeric water. 250g powder, heat with 10l water. Cool it. You can dilute it with 150l water. Regularly spray (once a week) if you're having lady fingers for initial 45 days.

Leaf curl (chilli, brinjal) is also a virus attack. Turmeric solution works.

Spray at the bottom of the leaves as well as most of the pests live on the underside.

Marketing
  1. Set the right price.
  2. FPO
  3. Try to process and make this into a value added product

QnA

  • In the long term, yield is same. After 3 years, the soil would be ready.
  • In organic, flowering might happen at different times and sizes would be different.
  • Only FSSAI is enough, which is also easy.
  • Mulching is very good for soil. Also reduces the consumption of water. But it increases snakes.
  • Seeds -

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