The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Dry land farming: organic mulch is key to enhancing productivity

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 11, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Dry land farming: organic mulch is key to enhancing productivity

Special Correspondent

`TNAU has identified a groundnut culture meant for release shortly'

Coimbatore: Organic mulching plays a crucial role in enhancing productivity of dry land crops, Vice-Chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, C. Ramasamy, said here recently.

Speaking at the concluding session of the two-day annual research meet on oilseeds, he observed that drought tolerance capacity of the crop variety alone would not help. Hence some amount of sound management practices capable of holding the moisture content in the soil per se had to be thought of. "Organic mulching is one such effective management practice whose application needs to be explored seriously."

Develop mechanisms

According to a university release, he urged the scientists to develop mechanisms for applying sub-surface organic mulches during the time of sowing with semi-composed coir pith and other such plant residues. However, organic mulch research should necessarily take into consideration the factors such as locally available mulch materials, reduced volume, mechanised application, cost effectiveness and user-friendliness.

Dr. Ramasamy said that since farmers hardly followed nutrient recommendations for any crop, recommendations in the form of fertiliser mixtures would be more viable and farmer-friendly.

Trials proposed

The university had proposed to take up such trials in both irrigated and rainfed situation in its research stations initially for four oilseed crops - groundnut, sesame, sunflower and castor - for developing specific fertiliser mixture schedules and recommendations. "If it succeeds commercially, this new approach will be a boon to the farming community," he added.

B. Chandrasekaran, Director of Research of the university, while presenting the thrust areas of oil seeds research, indicated that package practices for rainfed groundnut encompassing seed drill, organic mulch, microbial consortia and rain gun\mobile sprinkler should be developed. Moreover, yield enhancement studies through molecular approaches and gene isolation for groundnut need to be attempted.

Edible oil

K. Palanisami, Director, Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development, pointed out that the production of edible oil in the country was 6.64 million tonnes and the imports ranged around five million tonnes. Therefore there was an urgent need to expand oil seed production in terms of yield, oil and protein content, which remained below international standards. Though the Central Government had announced attractive minimum support price for oilseeds, lack of identified agencies for procuring the produce was affecting the profitability of the farmers.

As exporting countries had been increasingly diverting edible oils for biofuel production, imports to India might be affected. Hence, "this becomes an important researchable issue", he said.

T.S. Raveendran, Director, Centre for Plant Breeding and Genetics, said the university had identified a groundnut culture meant for release shortly. This was a bunch variety of 105 days duration with 50 per cent oil content. Above all, it was drought tolerant. As a rainfed crop, it was capable of yielding 1,916 kg per hectare and in irrigated conditions, it could yield around 2,403 kg per hectare.

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