DOS AND DON'TS IN SRI: MY EXPERIENCE AS A FARMER
V.K.V. Ravichandran, Farmer,
New 52 (Old 28), Nallamangudi Agraharam,
Nannilam, Tiruvarur district, Tamil nadu
Mobile: 9443683724 , E-mail: vkvravi@gmail.com
Dear All,
I have been practicing SRI, for the past 5 years. Though some of the important features like transplanting young seedling, fewer seedlings per hill, wider spacing, controlled irrigation, application of rotary weeder were sporadically practiced in our village by my uncle Shri. V.K. Janakiraman as early as 1970, it did not evolve as a system then. All the practices were not carried out together in synergy. Eventually such practices were given up in spite of the benefits, as there was no scientific studies at that time. It is really a blessing for the farming fraternity that scientific interpretations are given for each component of SRI now.
I am sharing with you the lessons I have learnt since I started practicing SRI .While carrying out the practices; I had undergone some difficulties in the field level.
After applying my mind to over come such practical difficulties, I have taken some corrective measures in the subsequent seasons. As rightly pointed out by Norman Uphoff, it is an evolving system and work in progress.
Whenever my farmer colleagues ask me to explain SRI briefly, I tell them that it is like a two wheeler motor cycle which gives more mileage under ideal conditions like, the fitness of the bike, ideal air pressure of the tires, condition of the road, wind direction and so on. In SRI we provide all the ideal conditions for the rice plant to attain it's potential yield. We have to plan well in advance for the successful implementation of SRI. I have set out the dos and don’ts while adopting SRI. These are the results of my past failures for which I evolved a self regulating guideline. I am still in the learning process. I am optimistic that each time I commit a mistake, I can over come them. My fellow farmers might have experienced some difficulties in implementing SRI. I am keen to know about such practical difficulties and also the corrective measures adopted by them.
A] Selection of the Season:
Paddy is grown in wet land. The initial 15-25 days after the transplantation is very crucial. As we will be transplanting one very young seedling with a spacing of 22.5cms,if there is heavy rains the tender plant will submerge and perish. The rice plant should establish well before the on set of monsoon. I use to compare the initial 15 days after transplanting of the seedling with the days a patient after the by pass surgery spends in the Intensive Care Unit. If the plant is protected in the initial 25 days, it can with stand heavy rains.
- Do plan in advance the timing of sowing.
- Don't venture SRI planting during monsoon.
B] Selection of the paddy field for SRI planting :
As mentioned earlier the initial 15-25 days after transplanting is very crucial. If we flood the field the transplanted seedling will perish and the population reduce. On the other hand if we allow the field with just moist condition weeds will establish faster before we start cono weeder operation. The challenge before us is how are we going to tackle the two conflicting situations?
In many cases the farmer's field might be situated in the middle of other farmers’ fields. This is due to the fragmented land holdings in our country. He has to irrigate and drain his field through the other farmers fields and hence he may not irrigate or drain at his will. If a farmer adopts SRI and the other farmers surrounding his field continue with the conventional method, the SRI farmer will face the problem while draining the water from his field. This will defeat his efforts to keep his field moist which is one of the important requisite of SRI.
Do:
a. Select the field with less incidence of weed
b. Dry plough the field well in advance.
c. Select the field with good drainage facility. The SRI farmer must be able to drain the surplus water directly in to the drainage channel.
d. Prepare small drainage within the SRI field with a width of 30cms and 15cms deep , so that the water stagnating in patches any where in the field could easily and automatically drained. (Refer attached diagram)
e. Start preparing the main field even before raising the nursery. At any cost transplantation should not be delayed for want of well prepared main field.
f.
The main field should be leveled like the table top.
Don'ts:
a. Don't select the field which has uncontrollable weed problem.
b. Don't select the field whose drainage and irrigations depend on the surrounding farmer's fields.
c. Don't plough the field merely using the tractor cage wheel. Use rotator plough so that the field is reasonably leveled. Use leveling plank in the main field.
C] Sowing strategy:
I have experienced the problems some 4 years ago, where I took up sowing for 5 acres (10kg of seed material) in a single day. I was constrained to take up planting 5 acres on the 14th day. Finally I ended up transplanting aged seedling as the required number of trained workers could not be employed in a single day. To mitigate the problem I have started sowing 2kg a day in a phased manner. I don't agree with those who say that SRI could not be taken up in a larger area. If one takes up sowing in staggered and planned manner, even big farmers can adopt SRI in a larger area.
Do: Plan the sowing in a staggered manner depending on the availability of trained transplanting labourers.
Don't: Don't sow large volume of seed materials on a single day. The farmer might end up undertaking transplantation of aged seedling for want of adequate trained labourers.
D] Nitrogen Management:
Another important lesson that SRI has taught me is management of Nitrogen. I had been applying N by way of urea as per the general blanket recommendation for paddy in the SRI field. My SRI crop was severely affected by leaf rollers, whereas the incidence of leaf rollers was very much less with the same amount of "N" per acre applied in the Non SRI field .I incidentally noticed green leaves with darker shades in my SRI field where as the leaves were pale green with the same amount of N application in the non SRI counterpart. I inferred that because of the profuse root formations in the SRI paddy with just a mere moist conditions, the nutrition’s were absorbed almost entirely as there are more roots to feed through, besides leaching through water is very negligible. I understood that the nutrition uptake efficiency is much higher in SRI.I contacted the scientists at Tamil Nadu Rice Research Station [TNAU], Aduturai. They suggested me to use the Green Colour Card so that N could be applied at the appropriate time with the desired quantity.
Do: Reduce N application not only for cost reduction ; but also to avoid leaf rollers. Use Green Colour Card to provide the desired quantity at the right time.
Don't: Don't apply N as per the general/blanket recommended dose that we give for conventional planting method. Otherwise damage due to leaf roller attack will be severe.
E] Use of rotary/cono weeder:
I feel, instead of naming it as a weeder, it could be renamed as "weeder cum aerator .I have noticed the weeder operators just roll the gadget. It doesn't churn the soil. I feel it should be moved back and forth to facilitate aeration. Not all the weeds could be uprooted and incorporated in the soil. Some weeds like' korai
should be manually uprooted.
The rotary weeders that are operated by batteries and engines must; not only make the task easier, but also churn the soil for aeration.
Dos: Move the rotary/cono weeder back and forth to churn the soil.
Don't: Just roll it in the field.
F] General:
At the time of uprooting the seedling from the nursery ; we can dip the root in the bio fertilizers like Asospyrillum, Phospho Bacteria and Potash solublizing Bacteria besides disease controlling pseudomonas. Though this is already a recommended practice even for the conventional method, this could not be practiced because of huge volume of seedlings. As the quantity of seedlings to be handled in SRI is very minimal, this technology could easily be adopted.
As the seed material is just 2kg/acre, we can produce quality seed materials using breeder, nuclear seed materials which are available only in very small quantity. For the best crop performance quality seed is the basic ingredient. Through SRI we can produce excellent seed material in large quantity.