Punjab embraces new seeding technique

The direct seeding methodology for paddy cultivation has caught the fancy of farmers in Punjab. It is not just the Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana that has been vouching for it, but the state government, corporate houses, NGOs and individual farmers are also making efforts so that the technology achieves wider acceptance among the farming community.

With combined efforts, agriculturalists said the total area under this methodology would cross 20,000 hectares during the current paddy season.

The methodology saves about 40-50 per cent of water in the direct seeded fields and can reduce farmers cultivation cost by a staggering Rs 5,000 per hectare, as no manual labour is required to transplant paddy besides machinery and electricity costs.

 

Traditionally, paddy is grown by planting seeds in a small nursery and then the sapling are manually transplanted after about four weeks to the main cultivation area. The saplings are then allowed to grow and the fields are kept under 3 to 4 inches of water, mainly to reduce growing of weeds. This ‘puddle irrigation’ requires high consumption of water.

However, the 'Direct Seeding' methodology, that sows the seeds directly in the fields, has shown a substantial reduction in water consumption and also in the production cost. The Direct seeding also has the additional environmental benefit of reducing emission of greenhouse gases like Methane apart from improving soil porosity which can increase productivity of the succeeding crop.