Hoshiarpur - To save water in village Handowal Kalan, direct sowing of paddy and cultivation of maize was discussed with village farmer Dalveer Singh and other farmers associated with him. Dalveer Singh, son of Harbhajan, farmer of the village, said that he had started direct sowing of paddy in about 3 acres during the year 2020, but due to lack of experience, his experiment failed during the year 2020. Still, this farmer did not lose courage and in the year 2021 again increased the area by 3 to 5 acres and sowed.
This year, with the help of experts from the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department, he succeeded in direct sowing of paddy by properly managing weeds in the paddy crop and obtained a yield of 25 quintals to 27 quintals per acre. After this, this farmer successfully cultivated paddy till the year 2023. The farmer told that on direct sowing of paddy for the first time, he has to face some problems like weed problem, iron deficiency etc. But if farmers have complete knowledge about direct sowing of paddy, then they can get good yield of paddy through this method.
Therefore, direct sowing of paddy should be done only after obtaining technical information regarding direct sowing of paddy from the nearest agriculture office, so that the farmers do not have to face any kind of loss. According to his experience, the farmer said that there is a serious problem of weeds in direct sowing of paddy, but it can be managed properly with timely and proper use of herbicides recommended by the Agriculture Department. He said that it is more profitable to do direct sowing of paddy using wet-water method between June 1 and 15. To prepare the field, the field should be plowed thoroughly and weeds should be removed. After this one should cry twice.
After this, when the field is in moist condition, the field should be plowed two to three times and immediately after turning the soil, seeds should be sown at the rate of 8-10 kg per acre in the evening or morning with a DSR drill machine. One day before sowing, the seeds should be soaked in water for 6 to 8 hours, after that the seeds should be treated with medicine. Due to this, the crop gets bushed properly. After sowing with this method, first watering should be done after 21 days and after that watering should be done at weekly intervals as per requirement. Along with this, one should also keep in touch with the Agriculture Department, so that any kind of disease and pest problem in the crop can be solved in time.
Apart from this, the farmer told that he is cultivating maize for silage with the help of Chhabra Silage Company for the purpose of saving water and crop diversification. About 800 farmers from 25 nearby villages are associated with it. Due to this, farmers get better price for their maize crop. On this occasion, farmers Santokh Singh, Balveer Singh, Tarlochan Singh, Gurdeep Singh, Harish and other farmers associated with Gurmukh Singh and Dalveer Singh were also present.