Tamil Nadu - Nagercoil   

Farmers' patronage for SRI method on the rise

Better yield:A paddy field cultivated under the System of Rice Intensification technique.

Nagercoil: The ‘System of Rice Intensification' method is swiftly picking up in different parts of Kanyakumari district following the increased awareness created by the Department of Agriculture.

Agriculture Officer (State Schemes), T. Jasmine said that three kg of certified seeds was needed to raise paddy crop on over one acre under this scheme, where as in the traditional method 24 kg of certified seeds was needed to cover the same area. Both water consumption and requirement of labour were very low for this method.

Paddy crops would be planted in the ratio of 22.5 cm X 22.5 cm.

Weeding was also very easy under this scheme and the Department of Agriculture used ‘cone weeder' for every 10 days to remove the weeds thereby reducing the cost of labour.

The farming community could get the yield for short term crops within 115 days, long term crops within 155 days and mid-term crops within 125 to 130 days.

Farmers could also get the yield of 25 to 30 tonnes per hectare by implementing SRI method, where as in the traditional method the farmers could get a yield of only 7 to 10 tonnes per hectare. Now owing to the awareness among the farmers to adopt SRI method, they were slowly coming forward to follow the SRI method under the direction and the supervision of the agriculture officers, said Ms. Jasmine.

The Agriculture Department had fixed the target of raising paddy crops on over 11,000 hectares.

However farmers would cover only 9,000 hectares. They had already raised paddy crops on over 3,100 hectares.

Farmers of Agastheeswaram taluk raised paddy crops on over 400 hectares and farmers in Rajakkamangalam had also cultivated paddy on over 145 hectares through direct sowing.

They had to undertake direct sowing owing to lack of adequate water for irrigation purposes.

Farmers would transplant paddy crops as they had adequate nurseries (ie.,) they had to raise the nursery in one cent and transplant it to 10 cents (1:10 ratio)

Plantation crops

One could not see paddy fields in Thiruvattar block, as the farmers here preferred to raise rubber, coconut, tapioca, spices and other all plantation crops.

However farmers in Boothapandi, Agastheeswaram, Kurunthencode, Thuckalay, Melpuram, Munchirai and Rajakkamangalam used to raise paddy and hence Kanyakumari district was once considered as the ‘granary' of the erstwhile Travancore State.

Moreover the Agriculture Department had fixed the target for distributing 100 tonnes of certified seeds but it exceeded the target by issuing 104 tonnes to the farmers.

All agriculture extension centres had adequate stocks of fertilizers and the farmers could make use of this opportunity, said the Agriculture Officer.

Widespread rains lashed various parts of the district for the second day on Tuesday.

The water level in Pechipparai dam stood at 23.30 feet, 41.75 feet in Perunchani, 7.71 feet in Chittar I, 7.84 feet in Chittar II, and 1.50 feet in Mukkadal dam.

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