Faridkot farmers adopt paddy straw management technologies

摘要

Karamtej Singh s/o Sukhdev Singh, a progressive farmer is a resident of village Pacca and practices paddy-wheat rotation on his 55 acres of land. He is keen to sustain the fertility of his land and keep environment healthy and pollution free. Though not well versed about the new technologies of paddy straw management, but still he has been cultivating wheat without burning paddy straw on about 8-10 acres for many years. To acquaint himself about the latest technologies, he came into contact with KVKand FASC Faridkot. During 2017, he had sown wheat on an area of about 20 acres without burning paddy straw, for which he faced some problems due to non availability of latest machinery for paddy straw management. During 2018, seeing the various technologies demonstrated at KVK, he got motivated and made his mind to sow wheat without burning paddy straw. He gathers knowledge about latest technologies and machinery for paddy straw management and applies these on his fields. During 2018, he harvested 10 acres of paddy crop with combine fitted with super SMS and rest with normal combine. He shared that harvesting paddy with SMS combine covers less area and also consumes more fuel as compared to normal combine. During current rabi season ie 2018-19, after harvesting paddy, he incorporated paddy straw in the field by reversible MB plough followed by rotavator and prepared land for sowing wheat on 41 acres. Karamtej Singh is of the view that machinery for incorporating the paddy straw is very good but for operation, it requires high horse power tractor, which is out of the reach of many farmers. He is of the opinion that in order to make these technologies popular among farmers of the state, the cost of these machines should be brought down and these shouldbe exempt from GST. He motivates other farmers of the area about the advantages of adopting technologies for incorporation of paddy straw. By not burning the paddy straw, he has played his role in protecting environment by reducing pollution besides reduced cost of cultivation.