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 into the heading stage in the fields and will be harvested last.
CO43 harvest getting ready for the storage.
Straw bales waiting to be picked up.
Manjula in Annapurna fields.
As the paddy season passes; we have a sesame and mustard crop getting ready for harvest on the far out plot(id 373) which was sown in the newly planted gliricidia plantation. This crop was sown in the end of November as a post monsoon crop. These are rain fed crops and need little water only.
Plot 373 in early December 2022
Sesame | Mustard field, January 2023
Sesame in the flowering stage.
Mustard flowers.
Here’s the new tractor implement – mulcher in action, preparing a field (plot 392BB south) to sow green gram + cowpea + ragi mix under irrigated conditions. This is an experimental plot where we work in alleys between Gliricidea rows with micro sprinklers. We hope to expand this type of cultivation in the years to come.
Last sown “Poovan Samba” on the left and first sown CO43 ripening on the right, Annapurna January 2023
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 CO43 seed field for precision while the rest of the 3.5 acres were harvested using a track combine harvester – a smaller machine than a regular combine harvester; a bit higher on the price point but works efficiently in the wet field conditions without making deep tracks on the paddy fields. Currently harvested paddy is being sun-dried, followed by winnowing to clean and separate filled grains from empty husks. This particular seedbed was into the heading – flowering stage during rainy-cloudy days which does have negative effects on the pollination process. We will be curious to see how many bags (KG) this early sown paddy variety fills.
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 thirds, occurring on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd day after stage – heading. Rice is highly self-pollinated. The florets open from 0900 to 1500 depending on variety and weather. They open early on bright days and late on humid and cloudy days. The stamens elongate and anthers move out of the flowering glumes as pollen is shed. The pollen grains fall on the pistil, a feathery structure, through which the pollen tube of the germinating grains will extend into the ovary. The lemma and palea then close.” Further, the panicle takes 25 to 35 days to fully ripen. Grain development is a continuous process in the sequence of flowering and the grain undergoes distinct changes before it matures fully in 3 stages – The milky stage, Dough stage, and Yellowing & ripening stage. The milk stage is observed when a milky white substance begins to accumulate, usually seven to 10 days after heading. The dough stage occurs about a week later as the milky substance begins to change and become the texture of bread dough. When rice grains first become firm, they are at the physiological maturity stage.
Rice panicles drooping down as the grain ripening progresses.
At this stage, we have the next round of pests circling the paddy fields – small birds – Finches and peacocks (Leaf rollers and stem borers are the first ones). At Annapurna, we host a large number of migratory paddy birds at the beginning of the paddy season who eat insects through the puddled fields where at the times young paddy seedlings become collateral damage. The paddy landscape includes tall, medium-sized trees scattered lightly throughout to host the diversity of birds to perch and nest on; which also keeps a fair check on the paddy insects-pest population. We also have a large number of peacocks on the farm who similarly serve Predatory skills as well as beauty. With the paddy ripening, we now observe small birds flocking around the ripened panicles to pick grains. In the past season we observed peacocks keenly visit fields once the crop is fully ripened and lodged (on the ground), but this season we find them frequently visiting our semi-short variety – CO43 fields pecking on drooping panicles.
Top ripened grains grazed by birds.
We manage to keep deer and wild boars away from the paddy with the electric fence which is also one of the elements that add to paddy economics. But the peacocks and birds may need a different solution, we will be busy quantifying the damage and exploring ways to manage such pests in the coming weeks.
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 be harvested in January to further trial corn flour.
View from the 3rd Banana plantation and papayas At the end of July 2022, we extended the existing 1.5 acres of banana plantation by 0.5 acres. This plot is planted with “karpurvalli” banana suckers selected from the older plantation. We did away with the variety of Poovan, as it was found to not suit our soil conditions. We are also testing and observing four different varieties一 Red, Robusta Dwarf, Yelakki, and Rastali一 to explore greater taste and diversity within the plantation.
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 is an extensive task and expense. We are testing various methods to reduce the weeding efforts; starting with a direct seed drill using a paddy drum seeder (hand-operated) to give a breather from continuous transplanting to start weeding early, dryland weeding techniques (couldn’t test extensively this season) and cutting overgrown weeds (grasses) through selected growing paddy fields. In the best-case scenario, we receive a good amount of rainfall at the beginning or before the paddy season that fills 3 of our ponds enough to keep the fields wet that controls weed growth to some extent. Wet paddy fields are also easier to pull weeds out whereas dry hard fields slow down the process. In season 2022-23 we observe very light rain (SW) at the beginning of the paddy, usually NE wind turn by the end of October but not this season. As ponds were running dry, we pause and yet continue through the season to finish the transplant by pulling in borewells and diesel pumps to irrigate the crop extensively. While struggling with the weather, we observed an uncontrollable amount of weeds coming through some paddy fields (extended dry conditions). CO43, one of our early short-erect straw variety and test direct sown Annapurna was the most affected; as we deal with these early planted fields, there is the next round of weeds building up in later planted paddy.
But the second week of November has brought us enough rainfall to fill one of the pond to its capacity. For now we can switch off borewells and fossil fuel for the paddy season.
Irrigated salad bars/green manure are relatively easy depending on the monsoon each year. At Annapurna, we receive an ample monsoon (summer and winter) and sometimes, even a cyclone at times. As a result, rain water harvest ponds have more capacity to sustain the rice, orchards, and fodder, because of which we sow early harvested paddy fields to raise an irrigated salad bar. Green manures such as Phaslous Tribola and Sesbania Speciosa, (dryland specials) establish robust overgrowing of the weeds under irrigated conditions.
The CO43 paddy harvested early in January and the Annapurna paddy fields stretching up to 7.7 of the total 20 acres, raised with early green manure and irrigated since the good monsoon last season, serve as a grazing ground for the dairy during the dry season. Cows spend an hour grazing in a rice plot and get daily rotated into another field. The idea is to irrigate the fields enough to establish the crop, graze the cattle swiftly, and allow green manure to bounce back up with the irregular summer showers to plow it back in for paddy preparation. The remaining paddy fields are grown and managed as the dryland salad bar for the dairy and green manure for the paddy. Productivity of these plots varies from year to year depending very much on the summer monsoon rains.
In an exact opposite scenario, we rely on the summer rain to germinate the green manure. In such instances, we look at rain predictions and then sow the green manure. Some years it rains several centimeters high, which can replicate the same result as when we rely on the irrigated system. This year, however, the rains were short and scattered.
This brings us the first heavy flush of weeds, predominantly the Trianthema decandra L, which is locally known as spinach and is edible for cattle in regulated quantities. Under the lush short canopies of this weed, we have our green manures germinated. It remains dormant without ample sun and moisture and waits for the weeds to wither out after its 45-day life cycle. This grown sea of this dominant weed also falls prey to caterpillars (moth species unidentified) and gets eaten away making way for the sunlight to reach the ground and the dormant green manure finally synthesizes back to life.
On the day of Ayudha Pooja (technically, celebrated it a day before the actual one) we had Manou visiting Annapurna to photograph some of the ladies who work at the farm. Manou has been travelling for the last 10 years taking images across India. His blog Wearabout is a document of people and clothing focusing on the use of hand-made textiles interwoven with narratives of people in a regionally and socially diverse society.
Photo IDs Slide 1: Sangeetha with her mother Sangini (in bright pink-blue sari). Sangini has been working with us since 1992 and Sangeeta soon after. Sangini has been involved in various farming activities since the beginning and has seen many season at Annapurna. Sangeetha started off with herding and milking cows; now she manages the day-to-day activities of dairy-fruit processing. Slide 2: Malathi, regular at Annapurna since 2018 and before the on-off season as a casual worker. Her day involves making database entries, supervising granary and day-to-day farm activities. Slide 3: Laxmi, a casual worker for the paddy season. Slide 4: From left to right, Shivgami, Santhi from Sedrapet, Soundri, and Anjali. Slide 5: Ambika, regular since the mid-90s. In paddy season she manages the transplanting team; off-season her role varies from dairy – processing to granary support. Slide 6: Santhi from Sedrapet. She used to be one of our milkers for the dairy until she stepped down due to health issues. Now she comes to the farm as a casual worker; actively during the paddy season.
I Pictures: straw bales being made – straw bales in the rain.
We are in the process of harvesting the 20 acres of paddy and hope to finish in a few weeks. The paddy was planted with intervals and so the harvest is also happening in steps. In this way we can better manage the work. Most of the crop we harvest with a combine harvester, which saves a lot of labor. In the process we do lose some grain because machines are not as sensitive as ladies with their sickles. Still, economically we come out better and more importantly we can move much faster. This is essential to be able to bring in a green manure crop (leguminous rich plants), after the harvest, on part of the area so the cattle have some good fodder in the summer.
I Video: combine harvesting with music.
I Video: next step, baling the paddy straw.
Things are all connected and time is very essential because organic farming goes very much with seasonality. Moving fast is also important because we see that weather seems more erratic; and we get those bits of rain in these months, which is wonderful to give a little refreshing feel, but are quite a nuisance when you are in the middle of a paddy harvest. We try to go with the flow ..
Our new pup Enya got Parvo virus and we had to go for intensive treatment for a week or so, but with the help of Dr. Thiruselvam she got through the ordeal and the puppy is slowly recovering.
I Pictures: Enya puppy – Serena, Asta & Enya – Pongal ride – Madhuri checking the paddy harvest results.
We had our yearly Pongal celebration with a puja in January, shared a meal all together and of course there was the cart ride which brings joy ..
Madhuri, our usually-Mumbai-based volunteer, stayed with us for a few weeks to help analyze our paddy results; she is developing herself into a rice cultivation expert!
We will share more about this years paddy crop soon.
We are also busy with our infrastructure improvement projects.
I Pictures: Fence pillar mould development: Andre – Fence pillar mould development: Kanduvel & Sudha – Upper pond preparation for liner.
The pilot boundary fence is going on. We got a lorry load of cuddapah stones (a rough black lime stone) and Andre prepared a few sets of pillar molds. We will start producing the pillars with a small mason team this week. We aim to put up another 100 m in this next phase.
A few days back there came a technician from a company from Coimbatore to look at the upper pond (a relatively small pond embedded in the hill of soil which was created when digging the big pond a few years back). He explained what still needs to be prepared before the liner can be put in place. This week he will send us their quotation for the material and we will start to work on this as soon we are freed from the harvest work.
Then at last we are on the point of getting a small three wheeler electric vehicle (Ev) for transport of our products. With the bulky bananas, which will become more and more part of the daily deliveries, our old mopeds cannot handle it anymore. Our jeep which is over 20 years old will soon not be able to be used anymore because new laws are going to be implemented to ban old vehicles from the road.
We had ordered an Ev from a company in Chennai who after many months of false promises did not deliver; we had to switch to a more reliable company. We are still fighting with the company in Chennai to return the payment we made to them. It’s a difficult thing to deal with and feels not so nice. Even things which look simple on the face of it are often quite challenging to get executed…it’s our collective karma probably.. because I see a lot of people around us here struggling in similar ways and maybe we need to see the process as the thing to focus on and leave the rest to the big picture …😉
Rice cultivation and dairy work are the two most intensive activities at Annapurna Farm.
Dairy is thriving throughout the year with a daily need of attention and work to be done. Paddy cultivation is happening for about 7-8 months per year in the field, and is very intensive with peak labor needs at planting and weeding time.
This starts in August with the first paddy seedbed and a small puja (= ceremony) to invoke the gods for good fortune, field preparation, planting, weeding and finally harvesting. We make about 8-10 seedbeds in a period of 80-100 days to be able to plant 20 acres over a period of 3-4 months. We are trying to speed up this process by organizing the work better and use our resources more efficiently every year.
In fact, preparation for this season’s paddy has started directly after the harvest of the previous rice crop by applying compost and establishing a green manure crop (to enhance soil fertility) on the fields since we had late rains and the rainwater harvesting ponds had lots of water. Then there was the preparation of nursery soil in May/June.
Beginning of the rice season Puja
Levelling the paddy field
Madhuri and Tarun
Good green manure this year
Paddy seedbed to be transplanted
Paddy planting
Every year we do some experiments and tests to learn, improve and keep our minds from getting into a rut. This year we are introducing a few new varieties of rice which our volunteer Madhuri organized for us last season. Then we do a few plots of direct sowing of paddy with a paddy drum seeder which Tarun, another of our volunteers, borrowed from his farmer friends.
Both these volunteers have moved on but were very helpful in the work here and we are still very much connected to support each other where possible.
Incorporating green manure with the cagewheels tractor.
Sowing paddy with the seed drum.
Direct sowing of paddy is not new to us, but the drum seeder is, and we want to see if this method of sowing seeds in rows on the field helps us to cut costs of transplanting which is a major expense in the cultivation.
We try to find paddy varieties which suit our conditions and can be sown at any time around the monsoon time so we are more flexible when weather is erratic and unpredictable. Most traditional varieties are very time-bound.
Very slowly we are trying to make the paddy cultivation more resilient and economically efficient, it is a wonderful and endless endeavor and totally in line with our work in Auroville.
