Farmers of Gurdaspur adopt conservation agriculture

摘要

Burning of crop residue mainly paddy straw is a major problem, which affect plants, animals, birds, micro organisms and soil health. Every year in October, there are clouds of smoke in Punjab and neighbouring states due to the burning of paddy straw.Due to this people face difficulty in breathing as well as the number of accidents also increases. From the last few years PAU has developed many technologies for paddy straw management.Sharanjit Singh is a young progressive farmer of village Waara, of district Gurdaspur. He owns 55 acres of land and has been cultivating traditional crops like rice, wheat and fodder crops. With the guidance of KVK, Gurdsapurand Department of Agriculture, Gurdaspur, he is always keen in adoption of resource conservation technologies at his farm. During 2015-16, he used Happy Seeder to sow wheat on an area of four acres in combine harvested paddy fields under the guidance of KVK. The Happy Seeder was provided by the KVK. On seeing the performance of the Happy Seeder sown crop, reduction in cost of cultivation, fewer weeds as compared to the conventional sown wheat, he decided to increase the area under this technology. In year 2017-18, he used Happy Seeder on 42 acres of land among which he retained straw in 26 acres, whereas, the straw form 16 acres was given to the gujjars. After seeing the performance of wheat sown in straw retained fields during the previous year, he has sown his entire wheat cropwith Happy Seeder after harvesting paddy crop with SMS fitted combine in this season. He is also incorporating left over straw after making "toorf in the fields itself. He is also using laser land leveller in his fields for judicious use of water. In this season Happy Seeder has been used for sowing of wheat in about 275 acres by the nearby farmers.