The Agriculture Department is planning to promote direct seeding of paddy on wet fields instead of the normal practice of raising nurseries and transplantation in certain areas of delta districts on a trial basis.
The department, which succeeded in promoting the technique during the last samba season in Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam and some parts of Thanjavur, initially planned to encourage farmers to adopt the method this season too.
However, release of water from Mettur Stanley Reservoir on the scheduled date of June 12 and moderate rainfall during the last few weeks has led to a situation wherein preparing the fields for dry direct sowing has become difficult for farmers in places where samba cultivation heavily depends on surface water irrigation for subsistence in case the northeast monsoon fails to bring sufficient rain.
Further, the steep depletion in storage level at Mettur during the middle of July has also caused some worries among farmers and officials. Though the storage level has now registered an upward trend, the quantum of inflow into Stanley Reservoir seems to bother stakeholders in delta districts.
In order to make the most of the available storage and anticipated inflow of water into Mettur Dam, officials, who have already suggested conjunctive use of filter point sources and surface water for irrigation, have now turned their attention to encouraging farmers with filter point irrigation sources and/or having their fields close to major channels to go in for wet direct sowing instead of the normal practice of raising nursery and transplantation.
Though the technique may not result in the quantum of water required for cultivation getting reduced in large quantity, raising the crop through wet direct seeding will help reduce the number of crop days by 10 to 15 days. The duration of medium-term crop varieties can get reduced to around 120 days and longer duration variety will come down to 140 or 145 days, officials feel.
Endorsing the view, S. Sundaram of Maharajapuram near Thirukattupalli and G.Srinivasan of Ganapathi Agraharam, both seasoned farmers, say direct sowing method will also help cut cultivation costs to some extent.
Mr. Sinivasan says he has already tested the technique and was able to cut short the expenses involved in nursery raising, transplantation and weeding by around ₹10,000 when he took up paddy cultivation through wet direct seeding. Further, cultivation of traditional varieties such as mapillai samba will have fewer weeds on the fields and thereby reduce the burden of weeding.
Another farmer, S. Rajendran of Kannangudi Kizhaiyur near Orathanadu, who has taken up kuruvai cultivation on an acre through wet direct seeding method by using drum seeder, claims that he engaged five to six persons per day for five days to carry out the weeding operations. “Now, the crop is at the flowering stage and will be ready for harvest by the end of next month,” he says.
P. Venkatesan, retired director, Seed Certification, urges farmers not to use more than eight kg of seed per acre irrespective of the method of sowing and opt for long-term varieties if they are confident of completing seed sowing/transplantation by the first week of September and go in for medium-term varieties till September-end.