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.
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 design is what we need here.
The first mini prototype fence at the north east of Annapurna. October, 2021
Since this is going to the be by far the biggest project Annapurna farm has ever embarked upon we want to make small steps to be sure what we are going in for. The farm has a periphery of 8km! So after the first mini prototype to see the idea in real, this year we embarked on step 2 to learn how this project can best be executed and what the cost will be. We secured funds through a generous donor to be able to build 100 m of the fence. Andre designed the pillars and casted them in our workshop. The pillars are the skeleton of the fence and need to be really good to be able to last for decades. We did realize that the work took a lot of the attention away from the farm, but the pillars which we created, although quite costly, were of a superior quality. Then we cleared the area to be fenced with a jcb and hired a contractor to install the fence. Here we did a lot of learning; Since the fence is heavy and quite different from what is normally done in Auroville, it took a lot of trials before the team had it right. The contractor used a lot of manual labor for lifting and installing. All this made the job go slow and became quite costly in the end.
Now after all this, we feel we need a third step to be able to make a proper cost estimate. We still have some materials and funds to build another section of approximately 40 m fence. Since we now know a bit better what this fence entails, we will try to improve the pillar making efficiency and will use some lifting devices to erect the fence. In short, to use minimum labor and where possible use equipment for heavy work. This work we will do after monsoon when our main crops are harvested, and soil dries up to make it possible to work properly on the site. Once this third step is done we will get back to you with the outcomes and needs… *note that the barbed wire still needs to be strung over the wall part like in the concept-pilot.
A section of 100 meter fence pilot at the west boundary of Annapurna, September 2022.
We started the paddy season this year on 28th August sowing the first seedbed. The season began with an all-season improved variety CO43 along with Bhavani to test its early seasonality. We started the field preparation in the dry month of September where unlike the last couple of years, there was no trace of summer showers. As of today, we have finished transplanting varieties: CO43, Farmer’s select Annapurna, Test|Bhavani and Test|Uma (red) in 14.7 of 20 acres of paddy and the remaining fields are still being prepared to plant further with red rice variety – Poovan Samba.
We skipped sowing Poovan Samba (red rice) as a test direct sowing system last week as 2 large ponds are reduced to the minimum and we are left with 2 bore wells, a single rain harvesting reservoir at its half capacity. Which shifts our focus now on maintaining – mainly weeding what is transplanted yet slowly moving to prepare remaining fields as we observe light monsoon (still South-west) in the air.
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.
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.
Digging of the pond, rice cultivation experiment and new biogas tank.
Besides the normal farm operations, we have been engaged with various projects in the past week.
Tarun is busy putting a periphery bund around a piece of forest land Annapurna acquired through a land exchange many years back. The land is a bit over one acre and is located in the very far North corner of the farm. We are digging a small water catchment pilot and with the soil which comes from the hole we are building a bund around the land. We can do this work because of a generous well-wisher who sees the importance of protecting and greening the land.
Then we stumbled upon an interesting way of rice cultivation on the Internet which is practiced in northern Thailand. Madhuri is doing experiments in pots to test the viability of the system so we have a better idea how to implement it when the paddy season starts. We hope this method will help us make steps forward in using less labor in the paddy cultivation. Labor is by far the primary cost in rice cultivation and prices keep going up fast while labor availability is dwindling.
Another ongoing project which moved forward was the installation of an additional biogas tank. A few months back we got a second-hand biogas digester from Ravena (a greenbelt community in Auroville). Andre and his team have been busy fixing and repainting it. Yesterday we put it in the ground and in the next weeks we hope to get it all fixed and connected to the dairy and fruit processing facility. They’re all small steps but very important and it’s satisfying to see things coming to fruition after often very long preparations.
