In the past few months, we have been busy harvesting paddy, including drying, cleaning and bagging the harvest. We also procured millets, paddy and pulses from Auroville as well as from bioregional organic farms. The procuring of products happens through our Foodlink Grains activity which is based at Annapurna Farm. Most farms have very limited…
We harvested the rain-fed sesame crop from the far-out plot [id: 373] this week. It took us 3 days to finish the harvest* from 4 acres, but we managed to harvest most of the crop in time without seed loss [shattering] due to over-ripening.*Sesame is harvested when the leaves turn yellow and start drooping and…
We finished harvesting the first paddy (CO43) and the straw was put into bales. We had to rush the bales to the store because there were predictions for rain.The next variety (called Annapurna – used for complete rice) is ripening and can be harvested soon. The last variety; our red rice “Poovan samba” is coming…
At Annapurna, we began our new year starting with the paddy harvest. As the sequence of sowing paddy in multiple seedbeds, we have paddy starting to ripen from late December to early March.This year weather favored us with light rather than no showers close to this harvest. We hand-harvested early sown Bhavani (test field) and…
Early sown varieties, Co43 and Bhavani (seasonality test) are past flowering and currently are in the ripening stage. As explained in Principles and Practices of Rice Production by S K De Datta,“At the time of anthesis (blooming or flowering), the panicle is erect in shape. The panicles flower begins at the top, middle and lower…
While we are still busy with the second round of the weeding through direct sown paddy fields, we have early sown paddy coming into the flowering stage. But paddy is not the only one coming into flowering but also Rosella and Corn. Rosella is being harvested for the processing jams and syrups while corn will…
In September we harvested around 3 acres of casuarina trees. The 3 plantations were 8-10 years old. These were rainfed crops and the trees had become nice and tall.In the last years, wood prices have been very low and there was no incentive to harvest the trees. But then recently the price shot up and…
Earlier this month we closed in transplanting paddy, a total of 20 acres with primary 3 varieties – Annapurna (farmer’s select), Poovan Samba (red) and CO43 (white; for parboiling) along with “Bhavani’ for seasonality test and a couple improved red varieties, long grain basmati for seed production. After field preparation and transplanting; weeding the paddy…
As mentioned in earlier communications; Annapurna farm is invaded by wildlife like pigs, deer and peacocks and it gets more and more difficult to grow crops in the farm. As also reported in one of our communications we built a short prototype of this fence a year back to get a good idea if this…
In the last week of October, We finished transplanting gliricidia in the far northwest of Annapurna plot 373. This comes after good rainfall overnight that finally pushed the planting work in motion. Here are a few images from the gliricidia plantation from the previous year, a part that has been shredded down for composting.
Annapurna Farm Auroville 