I have around 25 acres of land, leased out on yearly basis. We (me and my cousins) have been thinking about agroforestery off late, so this year we plan to start timber based plantations on 6.5 acres land (1.5 acres red soil, and rest 5 acres is black soil). - 2.2 acres of Eucalyptus (black soil), 2.3 acres of Melia Dubia with drip irrigation(1.5 acres of red soil and 0.8 acres of black soil) & 2 acres of Gummadi Teak with drip irrigation (black soil).
The reason of this post here is firstly to understand from Experts here if plantations like Melia Dubia and Gummadi Teak is fine on black soils? Theoriticaly it looks fine, quite some information on Internet mentions about these plants being cultivated in all kinds of soils. The black soil is in the start just after end of red soil (transition from red soil to black and is not regular paddy growing soil) - the farm is 4 KM from Kohir, (Kohir is on NH9 on way from Hyderabad to Zahirabad/Bidar/Pune), Medak dist, AP; from Hyderabad the farm is around 90 KM.
Secondly we looking for high yielding Melia Dubia & Gummadi Teak samplings and advice on drip system, plant spacing while sowing and post thinning, and demand for Biomass near Hyderabad would be helpful…to say We are looking for a project report for Gummadi teak and Melia Dubia. We are looking for long-term relationship with Consulantancy for advice and future plantations.
Please reply here or email me on these two questions.
I will introduce you to a good site related to Agroforestry. The URL is agrowmania.blogspot.in.
I request you NOT to grow plants like Eucalyptus which is environment hazard and will suck up the entire water. Please be aware.
Please try to understand the duration of the plants and then go for it. Melia Dubia may give returns in a short period of few years but Teak will take more or less 20 years.
Plus one to Padmanabhan, No eculyaptus or Acacia, Karnataka govt forest dept has now banned these two due to ecological problems. I have seen nothing, I mean nothing grows or lives underneath these plantations. Not even birds on these trees.
In my 3 acres I spent around 14k on JCB charges to uproot Nilgiri saplings and small trees. On further soil testing showed negligible amount of Organic Matter in this soil. I have left the land disc ploughed, for rain and nature to take care till I add supplements to that soil.
I am no expert, but I would rather evaluate the soil in terms of texture than the colour. Is the black soil too clayey? - shrinking and cracking when dry and swelling and becoming slippery when wet? Does the soil have decent drainage or waterlogs? I have seen that some of the black soils in Zaheerabad area are a mere 4-5 inches deep - did you check how deep the soil profile is?
My view is that unless the black soil is too shallow or too clayey, it should not be an issue for trees. If visual observation does not help, a quick beaker test to determine clay content should help?
@Chandra - Let me get some more details, but the soil is not too clayyey or too slipperry. Cracking, yeah in peak summer there are cracks but this is only couple of acres at the end of the farm.
People have plantations like Banana in neighbouring farms on these soils. Any tips on Melia Dubia & Gummadi teak.
@Padmanabhan - Thanks for the link. I have been doing my research since a while now, and heard that certain clone varieties are good in return but the fact could be that even those be bio-hazardaous, could you please comment? Owing the water scarcity, the inclination was to Eucalyptus. Gummadi Teak - seems to be mid-term (8-12 years) and Melia depends on plannig.
My suggestion is to get in touch with Vishnu Sankar who is writing the blog related to Agroforestry. I tried for Data Collection related to Timber Value Trees but no reply from him so far but I will get from other sources, may be it will take some more time.
If I am you, I will travel atleast 3-5 kilometres around your land and see what grows best.
My comments would be very simple. Please try the following:-
Go for Rain Water Harvesting. You dont have to dug anything. Just observe the rain water flow/slope and then erect at least 30 cms height and 15 cms width of mud/tree/stones etc to make the water seep in.
In one of the TV programs, I have seen people telling me in Vellore Dist, they have grown Mango Trees without much water. The idea is to save the rainwater with dry mulcing upto 1 feet around the trees dug underneath (atleast far from the roots and best would be at the edges of the branches)
Teak Plantation - I heard that you need to get permission from the Forest Dept to cut the trees. Please confirm this or somebody can comment.
Just 2 tree varieties is highly risky and disease prone. Just Diversity with more trees. You can 3-5 Lakhs from Papaya for 1 acre/year.
Vamsi,
Please do not think only selected 2 or 3 crops which you mentioned.
More impirtantly, avoid mono crops and have multi crops in which one crop will encourage
productivity in other crop and save water,manure, cultivation, labour and more.
First analyze marketable demand for the product and go ahead in planting the same.
Your time start from june first week or from the date of mansoon rains.
Though papaya is highly profitable, I have heard that mealy bugs are a major pest in this crop and many plantations have been completely lost due to this especially in TN, I have also heard that there is no sure shot organic cure for this pest? please can you advice
Mealy bugs have been a major pest in Papaya Crop and I have also heard the same. But the TNAU University has successfully brought from US a solution which is organic and is freely given to the farmers. Please refer thehindu.com/sci-tech/agricu … 714885.ece and also others articles are available in The Hindu.
Please note that this happens when Monoculture is practised in a large area and even Hibiscus Flowers are affected and I have seen with my own eyes.
Vamsi,
Land is leased to some one?
Will you personally/ personal supervision do farm work?
Immediately you want returns from crops?
Are you thinking profit out of land for limited period of may be 10?20?30 years or more than that?
Any have human life is for 100 years. Than you should plan for crops should more than 100 years.
Will you happy with single or 3, 4 verities? I don’t think. Go for more than 20 to 30 variety fruit, timber and other crops
Thanks a lot for your replies. I work in Hyderabad as Team Lead in a US based MNC, off late the thought of growing timber trees came as these do not need 100% of my time, couple of days on the weekend should be fine once the trees are 6 months old. I employed a guy to be at my farm for day-day activities. As mentioned, I leased out my land - I am not getting great returns from lease as well - it is aorund 6 K per acre, hence thinking to start off some planatations on a small scale starting this year - I so far decided on Melia Dubia and Gummadi Teak (Kumil) this year on two acre plot each with drip irrigation. Dropped Eualyptus on some advice here and after checking local forest development experts.
Spacing thought about:
For Kumil - 10X10 (feet), for Melia Dubia - 4.5x4.5 (feet) - to start selling for more space from 3 year onwards, ending at 8 years.
@Chandra - got soil tested yesterday with locally ofcourse not scientificaly and have positive result for 17 out of 25 acres.
Now we are getting the land ready ploughing, etc. and investigating about a consultany/farm to buy the seeds and adive for long term from Hyderabad preferably. Just for information for folks here, there is a bank loan option for lot timber plantations - check with assinged bank to the village. I am taking loan for 1 lakh as crop loan though.
Apologies for reply back to you after so long. Finally I am done with my plantations…I have got below planed on my farm (Near Kohir, Zahirabad)
1000 - Media Dubia as Intercrop of Mango and Guava
250 - Mango ( 5 varities of 50 each)
200 - Guarva (4 varieties of 50 each)
200 - Silver Oak
100 - Mahogany
50 - Kala Jamun
50 - Teak
The spacing followed on Mango & Guava was 20X20 ft with Melia Dubia as Intercrop with 10 ft spacing. I plan to perform another 10 acres of plantations next year.
Thanks a lot all for your information.If someone around Hyderabad is interested to visit my farm, please reply and we can arrange a mutual time.
Thanks for the details. Would that be possible for you to share the cost you incurred to plant these and whats the yield/net returns you are expecting in years from now.
I would be interested to see the farm too and I would be in Hyderabad around march/april and would look for you.
For a 5 acre plantation, approximately 2000 plants were planted costing around 3.75 Lakh. The bulk of the cost was for setting up the drip irrigation, the subsidy schme did not workout for me, so had to go ahead without it - costed 1 lakh altogether. so the overall costing for plantation 2.75 lakh, this includes land preparation, pitting, manuring, Levelling, Labour, Plantation, weeding (3 times so far). I estimated 3 lakh before starting, but had to hire a consultant for contract for manuring, plantation as I was abroad for a while - which shot up the overall cost a bit. Apart from this, misc cost would account for 10% percent. Overall I am satisfied on the costing front, but a lesson for me here is to have 30% as buffer always in this industry. Next year, would be doing another 12-14 acres on same lines, and also planning to have some agricultural intercrops for weed-control and running expenses.
In terms of returns, I cannot answer you as I am too naive to advice someone on farm returns. My target is to make atleast 5K a month/acre on timber plantations as profit and keep the fruit plantations as proud posssion …
In my short research from Internet, Experts, Villagers - Plantations are profitable but needs a lot of planning and outlook. A lot of timber plantations have failed, I have seen them, so if you are interested in getting plantations, diversify your farm to keep the risk minimized and plan plantations in phases after knowing what grow best and going around visiting some farms around. If you are doing plantations on Agri-lands, be double sure .
I dont know if this post is late but… 4.5 ft for melia dubia is very close…
I have tried 8 ft, 10 ft and now 15 ft with fodder in between…Check out more details at www.saverafarms.com. My plantation is little over 1 year and pilots over 2 years…
Good luck!
This is in response to another post of yours…Yes, most plantations fail because people think minimal care is needed after a year or so. You still need to irrigate/manure it if you want a good yield by the end of it…If you can dedicate 1-2 days a week, that is still decent…
Thank you for your reply. Yes, even I thought 4.5 X 4.5 is too agressive - so finally we have Mango & Guarva planted at 20X20 with MeliaDudia at 10X10 as Intercrop. The spacing is 10 feet between adjacent plant with plantation pattern as below - Mango/MD is on a 3.5 acres, and Guarva/MD on 1.5 acres with bunds planted with Silver Oak, Mahogany. Some Teak, KalaJamun on boundaries.
While planting: Mango plants were 1 year old, Guarva plants were also 1 year old, MD were 2-3 months old (2-4 feet avereage)
Vamshi,
My only point of concern is how do you control irrigate/fertigate the trees? I guess you have 2 sub mains to control that. If that is so, then it is fine. If not, then when you intend to fertigate mango, the nutrients are going to melia as well (which is wasteful) !
Good point, have not thought about it yet. Will try to improvize when we expand the farm next year
Some other question, I am planning to cultivate with minimum extras (say fertilizer or persides or manures) as the land was barren was quite a while now…do you still think we need to supply nutrients or just do proper intercropping with some smaller plants…I am still learning and trying to get things proper for next year, so please do not mind this question…
While planting, we used compost, VAM, Neemcake…thats it…
You need to apply 10-15 KG of fym, neemcake etc. VAM is not necessary but will not harm if u apply.
Broadcasting danchea or cowpea will take care of Nitrogen in the soil…
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