COMMERCIAL VEGETABLE PROJECT IN A TOUGHEST AND CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENT
Brief history of project site
Soil type – Red lateritic / sandy gravel
Bed rock – Archean Gneiss
Underground water level – 710 feet
Elevation – 780 MSL
Temperature range- 15 - 37 degree Celsius with diurnal variation of 12-14 degree celsius
Humidity – 60- 85%
Wind speed – 12 kms/ hour
Climate – semi dry with annual average temperature of 650 mm…30 year cycle average -550 mm and 100 year cycle – 750 mm
Major portion of rainfall- south west monsoon concentrated in few months June, July ,August and small part in October and November and occasionally summer showers in march and April
Distribution of rainfall is erratic …The number of rainy days are more but effective rainfall were noticed in very few days
Soil PH – 5.5
Available nutrients – poor in Nitrogen, Phosphorus and potassium and manganese content is significantly more
Underground water PH is 6.9 that is good otherwise
Ground water recharge is somewhat better than other site in semi dry climate
Sub soil hard layer is very tough to break open
Land terrain – undulated and gravels with iron cankers …
Above challenges presented by environment to test our capabilities
But very toughest challenges are man made …
When I advocated Laser leveling , some of the members advised ordinary land leveling
The drip company guy did not lay drip system as per drawing – When I asked for 5 feet lateral length and 2 feet emitter space , the guy installed system with drip lateral pipe at the spacing of 4 feet , and emitter spacing of 1.5 feet with 2.85 LPH discharges capacity …The implication here is the drip guy concerned only with marketing an d selling of his material but he never heeded to our requirement …Because the lateral and emitter ‘s cost is the major share of total cost of drip system almost 55 to 60 % …
Further the lateral pipe does not seem to be quality material …ie, second hand material that is collected back from those farmers who either run the system for few months and left the drip unused for many months or years …such plastics are melted and remade into new lateral pipe that breaks easily or could not withstand adverse weather condition prevailing in the field .
In our case the lateral twisted and bent and broke so easily utterly failing most of the emitters ,escalating our tensions .Because emitters failure will cause mortality of plants that reduce plant population and finally yield and quality of the produce will be less…
In semi dry condition , the main pipe and sub main pipes need to be fixed in tune with ground water potential and rate of flow/ discharge …and the dia of the sub main pipe must progressively get reduced so as to build pressure and ensure uniform emitters discharge …But the drip guy did a blunder mistake knowingly that most of the farmers are not aware of the implications involved in drip system and its functioning …
Under this condition we faced very toughest challenges in getting our project initiated successfully atleast initially when we did the planting …
Precautions when doing planting in semi dry area
1.Mulching sheet 25 to 30 micron thickness
2.We originally planned paired row planting …But the sandy lateritic soil did not allow water to spread sideward across the surface , instead percolated down …so under reduced dia of wetting around emitters , we happened to change our original plan and kept the planting at the centre where the emitters discharge water …
Naturally the soil needs t be fully wet in the beginning of the planting process…but dripper could not help wetting the soil completely …so we used hose pipe to drench soil fully atleast where the holes fall …
3.Intercropping – Main crop French beans ( duration 100-120 days) intercropped with Annual drumstick PKM1 that is tolerant to moderate drought and short duration crops like cucumber …
4.wherever we could not use mulching sheet the banana trash will be used to mulch the field
5.Since soil condition and terrain is posing unformidable challenges , we immediately shifted planting from ridge to furrow …First flood irrigation assisted us to take up planting and subsequent irrigation is done through drip systems
6.Weedicide spraying could not be done because poor wetting of the soil …
7.Yet we hope we succeed amid toughest challenges , both environmental and man made…
8.So we sandwich both conventional and organic cultivation methods with contingency to meet any unforeseen circumstances and challenges
