AGRICULTURE AND IRRIGATION

AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS

Agricultural operations vary according to such factors as crops, rainfall and soil obtaining in a particular region. Broadly speaking, they represent a succession of operations and have to be performed one after another in proper time. They consist of opening up of the land by digging or ploughing, further pulverisation of the soil, cleaning the fields, spreading the manure and mixing it with the soil, sowing the seed by broadcasting or trans-planting seedlings, inter-culturing, weeding, applying effective manures as top dressing, spraying or dusting insecticides, protecting the crop from stray cattle and wild animals and, at a final stage, right from harvesting and threshing of the crop to its storing and making arrangements for sending it to the market. But besides these, there are a number of occasional operations performed for effecting a permanent improvement of the soil which include bunding, levelling and reclaiming the land. Bund repairs form a specially important operation in salt lands. In fact, all paddy lands in the district are conveniently divided into plots with bunds on all the four sides, which cut open on one side in order to drain out accumulated water.

Rabbing

In March or April, a plot is chosen for seed-bed either in the rice field itself or on a higher ground close to the field and ploughed once and levelled. Six gunthas are enough for raising sufficient seedlings for one acre of land. Except in the southern part of the district comprising Mahad, Goregaon, Birvadi, Latvan, Kate and Poladpur among other places, where rabi crops such as tur, gram and other pulses are taken in November, lands generally remain fallow in the winter. During this period, patches in the fields are covered with a rab, which consists of a thin layer of brush-wood, tree-toppings, cow-dung and grass. Usually, the first layer made of cow-dung, grass and leaves is spread on the ground, a second layer consisting of twigs, dry leaves and brush-wood added and covered with grass, and finally, fine earth is sprinkled on the two layers. Subsequently, rab is set fire to for burning the seed-beds, the entire process being known as tabbing. This is usually done at the end of the summer and the rabbed area, which amounts to a tenth part of one occupied for cultivation is used for raising seedlings. In rabbed lands, seedlings are vigorous and land becomes free of weeds. If instead, ammonium sulphate is applied to seed-beds, seedlings are said to grow vigorously, but at the same time, to help seed-beds resume the growth of weeds. Farmers in the district prefer to rab their fields, since collecting leaves, stems, etc., in the nearby jungles is an inexpensive task. Thus, most of their time is spent in collecting rab and more particularly, forest-toppings, which make up the major portion of rab.

But it is of special importance to note that the old method of robbing the soil is giving way to the new method of paddy cultivation, called "Japanese method". The latter is in fact nothing novel except a little renovation over old culturable practices of paddy cultivation, which involve a colossal wastage of agricultural resources such as cow-dung, tree-toppings, etc.

Ploughing.

Ploughing is done by wooden or iron ploughs in order to strike at a multipurpose target. Thus, it digs out deep-rooted weeds or stubbles, opens up the land, aerates the soil, and finally, helps trap and store water for the crop. Land is ploughed, if possible, immediately after the first showers which fall in the beginning of June, as it is not possible to plough it at the end of the harvest season. The land sets very hard on drying, as soon as rains are over on account of an intensive puddling done to it in the process of paddy cultivation. So, the first ploughing is done in June, whereafter water is allowed to accumulate in small paddy compartments but not beyond three and a half feet deep and the field is left alone for two or three weeks, so as to enable a smooth raising of paddy seedlings. In case the stock of water is superfluous, the same can be drained out by providing suitable outlets to bunds. By the end of June or by the beginning of July, land is puddled by ploughing it thoroughly under stagnant water conditions usually three or four times or till a particular muddy physical condition of the soil tilth suitable to paddy growth is obtained. The general idea of puddling is to make the soil so sticky as to prevent water percolation to take place below the surface. On an average, a plough opens up from ten to fifteen gunthas a day and the total cost of ploughing one acre of land vanes from Rs. 15 to Rs. 20 per ploughing.

Pulverisation.

Pulverisation of the soil is done either by the clod-crusher (maind or alwat or gutephali) or by the wooden plank (phali), as the case may be. The former is worked by a driver with a pair of bullocks or by two drivers with two pairs of bullocks and covers two or three acres a day, while the latter is worked by a driver with a pair of bullocks for pulverising soft and small clods and covers equal acreage a day. In rabi season, however, manual labour is employed to break the clods by means of a small wooden hammer.

Cleaning the Field.

Cleaning the field is an operation undertaken mostly by female labour and includes picking lip remnants of the previous crop such as shrubs, stubbles, etc., which hinder effective sowing and inter-culturing and give room for hibernation of insects. A well-rotten farm-yard manure or compost from pits is applied. to manuring fields where it is transported usually in bullock-carts. In many parts of the district, it is the practice of farmers to quarter cattle or sheep at one place in the field and, after sufficient refuse is ready, to remove the animals to the next place in the field, and so forth till the entire field receives refuse in adequate quantities. Generally, one thousand animals quartered in an acre over a night give manure equal to five or six cart-loads. The com-post manure is heaped and then evenly spread over the field. One person usually spreads four or five cart-loads (of half a ton each) of farm-yard manure, and a harrow worked by a man with a pair of bullocks can mix it over an area of two or three acres a day. Due to the availability of organic manure in sufficient quantities in the nearby jungles, however, farmers are reluctant to make use of fertilisers, with the result that manuring is done to fields by a small number of farmers only, who are conscious of the utility of manuring to the vigorous growth of a crop. The Japanese method of paddy cultivation, however, prescribes liberal manuring to fields and recommends five cart-loads of farm-yard manure together with certain other fertilisers.

Sowing.

In most of the crops, seeds are sown for starting the crop; but in some crops, where seeds cannot be produced easily, parts of plants are planted either after irrigation or after rains. In the case of paddy, however, as seeds are small and as young plants require special care, seedlings are first raised in a specially prepared seed-bed and then transplanted. The seed-bed area is covered by rab about three inches deep and set fire to in April-May. After a little working with hand-tools in the fields, seeds are sown in early June, either in anticipation of rains or immediately after rains. The sowing operation is found to continue till mid-June. After few showers, plants begin to shoot and are allowed to grow for about three weeks or a month. By this time, fields are ploughed twice or thrice so as to allow the mud to get softened as best as possible. When the soil is thoroughly softened, plants are pulled, tied in bunches of fifty seedlings called muth and then transplanted. Six or even eight seedlings are kept apart in the field at a distance of eight or ten inches from one another. This is locally known as chikhlan as seedlings are simply pressed in the mud (chikhal) under standing water conditions. Transplanting is done by un-skilled labour and from eight to twelve persons can transplant in a day one acre of land. In salt lands, early coarse varieties are generally sown by broadcasting the seeds. When the soil gets soaked with rain water, sprouted seeds, two or three days old, are broadcast into the mud. The method of broadcasting the seeds is also practised in other lands, if the field after ploughing remains inaccessible for sowing due to incessant rains or is too poor to allow expenses involved in transplantation. In the ageold method of cultivation of paddy, about 40 lbs., in the Japanese method 12 lbs. and, in salt lands, 80 lbs. of seeds are required per acre. The sowing operations in the district coincide roughly with the out-break of the monsoons. The following statement shows the sow-ing time of some important crops in the district:—

Inter-culturing.

Interculturing means culturing or tilling or stirring the soil in-between the lines of a crop. It is done by an implement called hoe (kolape). Among the objects of the operation can be mentioned the removal of weeds that take away large quantities of moisture and plant food, aeration of the soil, preparation of a mulch, the conservation of soil moisture, pruning roots so as to encourage a deep root system and, finally, the destruction of harmful insects hibernating in the soil. The operation is rarely in vogue in the district except in the Japanese method of paddy cultivation where it assumes great significance. Naturally, as the new method of cultivation has been introduced in the district only in recent years and as its pace of progress appears to be slow, the operation has remained, as yet, unfamiliar to farmers.

Weeding.

The weeds that are in line with the crop cannot be weeded out except with the help of a weeding hook (khurpi). From six to eight persons are required to weed an acre of land, although the same depends on the kind and extent of weed growth. Usually, two or three weedings are sufficient for most of the crops in the district.

Top-dressing.

By top-dressing is meant applying effective manures evenly on the surface of the soil. Usually, this is done in the case of garden crops in the district and rarely practised in the cultivation of paddy by the indigenous method. Where, however, Japanese method is pursued, top-dressing is done to enhance effectively the yield of the paddy crop. It is also given where, it is apprehended, that the crop may not come up to the mark, if fertilisers are not applied to the soil.

Crop protection.

Broadly speaking, the object of this operation is to preserve the crop from damage. The farmer has to adopt protective as well as curative measures to save the crop from destructive agents. Spray-ing or dusting special insecticides or fungicides is a common method. for destroying insects and controlling diseases that may appear in a crop. But this is not enough. For, when the crop is full, birds and other animals have an eye on it and in the absence of a proper watch being kept on the crop, they may eat away or destroy the grain frightfully. A very common thing is to place a scare-crow at the centre of a field to serve as a bug-bear to these animals. But this proves' to be too superfluous and futile a measure. Naturally, some of them have to be scared away by shouts or by stone-slinging. Some have to be kept off by providing fences or trenches while others require to be shot and hunted. Not infrequently do the stray cattle provide nuisance to the crop and have to be impounded in the cattle-pound. Similarly, when the crop is ready, it has to be guarded against theft. This is done by hiring out for the necessary period services of a watchman, who keeps an overnight guard in the fields under his charge and is usually paid for this act collectively by cultivators of the fields thus served.

Harvesting.

One of the most important agricultural operations, next only to ploughing and sowing is the reaping or harvesting of the standing crops. The process is commonly known as kadhani or kapani and operated only when the grains are ripe. The time of this operation hence varies in response to the time of the ripening of a crop. The following statement gives the harvesting time for some of the important crops: -

Food grain crops such as rice, ragi, vari and kodra are harvested by cutting the plants close to the ground by a sickle (vila). The cut plants are then put into swaths and earheads removed by cutting or breaking and carted to the threshing-yard (khala). The stems or stalks are dried, bundled and stocked as fodder. Pulses are mostly cut as whole plants and removed directly to the threshing-floor. Where a second crop such as val or gram is taken, the farmer only sows the seed and ploughs the land and has no operation to undertake except harvesting. Vegetables are picked by hand except leafy ones which have to be uprooted. Root crops like potatoes, sweet potatoes, ginger and turmeric are harvested with the help of a spade (phavada).

Threshing and preparing for market.

The crop is allowed to dry for two or three days, whereafter it is tied into bundles and thatched in a heap called udvi. About a month later, it is threshed by beating the sheaves against well-cleaned threshing-yard (khala). The grain is separated from the chaff by winnowing against the breeze. Some of the root vegetables are dug out, cleaned well by rubbing out the soil after drying or washing and sold in the market; Some crops like ginger and turmeric are: dried and specially cured

Storing.

Grains are stored either for purposes of seed or for consumption. When they are meant for purposes of seed, the quantity is usually small, especially when an individual farmer preserves his own seed. On the other hand, when it is meant for future use, the quantity stored is considerably large. Grains are preserved in cylindrical bins called kangees made of bamboo and well-plastered on all sides with cow-dung and mud, so as to keep off insects from attacking the grains from outside. A special care has to be exercised, when grains are preserved as seeds. When, however, grains are stored for use at a much later date in future, the same are stored in underground pits or in cellars provided in residential houses.

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