Saturday 23 November 2013

Farm Design - Design One (Ver 5.0)

In our Agriculture for Everybody blog series, we will see the pictorial representation of the Fence Design.  The detailed discussion about the Fences have already been covered previously in our blogs.


From the picture, you can notice that there are 3 layers of Fences available.  The Fences will consist of 2 Ft Wide & 1.5 Ft Depth.  The Open Spaces will consist of 3 Ft Wide.  Either we can plant ourselves in the Open Spaces or we will allow nature to take care of itself.

It is not necessary to have all the 3 layers of the Fences.  Depending on the requirement, you can go for single layer or multiple layers of the Fences.

Thursday 14 November 2013

Farm Design - Design One (Ver 4.0)

In our Agriculture for Everybody blog series, we are going to see the Design One (Ver 4.0).


We have already analysed why Roads are very important in the Farm Design in one of our previous blogs.

In this blog, we are going to see the actual design in action and how we are going to utilize even the space allocated to roads to our advantage.


Note: The maximum width of the road vehicle in India is not more than 10 ft and hence we will keep this in mind while allocating the space for roads.

At the minimum, we have to allocate 15 ft or more for roads in our farm.  This is only required for the main roads as well as the entire border roads in our farm and may not be applicable for the roads in the interior of the farm.  This space is required so that the vehicle does not get into the crop areas of the farm and hence prevent the damage to the crops in the farm.

If you want the bigger vehicle to travel to the inner parts of the farm also, then 15 ft is required for all the roads.  Otherwise, you can allocate very small area for smaller vehicles (depending on the vehicle width and add 1 or 2 ft extra).  This way you can transport the goods to the bigger vehicle by using the small vehicle.

If you want only a single road, I think 15 ft is enough.  But if you want double roads (two-way roads) as depicted in the picture, it is better to allocate 20 ft for each of the roads.  This means you will be allocating 40 ft.

You can plant big trees (bigger crown area) like Coconut, Fig, Tamarind, Jackfruit etc in this Trees Space.  This way you are productively using the entire space allocated to the road for other purposes as well.  This type of planting is applicable only for the East-to-West direction road only.

For the North-to-South direction road, you need to align the trees as per the Trees Space alignment.  Otherwise, the Open Space area will have shadow and hence the growth of the crops will be affected.  If in case, you want to utilize the Open Space area as well, you need to grow only those crops that does not grow beyond 4 to 5 ft in height. 

Saturday 9 November 2013

Resources & Links

I am trying to provide the very important Links which will be useful for the farmers.  I have so far identified the following links that will be of immense help to the farming community as they do not have to re-invent the wheel.

Note: As usual, please let me know the important links you have come across related to Farming/Agriculture.



Crop Production Techniques
  1. Crop Production Techniques of Horticultural Crops (for Tamilnadu from TNAU) (2013 Ver) - http://agritech.tnau.ac.in/pdf/2013/cpg_horti_2013.pdf (2.5 MB Size)
  2. Crop Production Guide for Agriculture (for Tamilnadu from TNAU) (2012 Ver) - http://agritech.tnau.ac.in/pdf/2013/CPG%202012.pdf (2.86 MB Size)
Tools
  1. Drip Irrigation
  2. General 
    1. http://www.ide-india.org/ - Tools for Small Land Holders
Facebook

  1. Dr. G. Nammalvar - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-G-Nammalvar-Organic-Agriculturist/197789246939878
Nurseries

  1. http://www.edennurserygardens.com - India's First Organic Nursery
  2. http://www.flowersofindia.net/misc/nurseries.html
  3. http://www.nhb.gov.in/nursery/report/nurseryreport.aspx - Registered Nurseries of India
Market Prices
  1. TNAU & Department of Agricultural Marketing, Chennai - http://www.tnagmark.tn.nic.in/default.htm
  2. Dynamic Market Information - http://202.129.199.72/

Organic Certification Agencies

Rainfall, Temperature & Weather
  1. http://www.imdagrimet.gov.in/
Schemes & Subsidies for farmers in Tamilnadu
  1. Agriculture Citizens Charter (in Tamil) http://cms.tn.gov.in/sites/default/files/documents/agri_t_cc_2014_15.pdf
  2. Agriculture Citizens Charter (in English) http://cms.tn.gov.in/sites/default/files/documents/agri_e_cc_2014_15.pdf
  3. Fisheries Citizens Charter (in Tamil ) - http://cms.tn.gov.in/sites/default/files/documents/fisheries_t_cc_2014_15.pdf
  4. Fisheries Citizens Charter (in English) - http://agritech.tnau.ac.in/fishery/fisheries%20citizen%20charter%202013-14.pdf
Soil Testing Labs in TN
  1. http://agritech.tnau.ac.in/agriculture/agri_soil_testinglabs.html
Timber Trees of TN
  1. Utility of Agro Forestry Trees Species in Tamil Nadu
  2. Tamilnadu Treepedia/

General
  1. Indian Society of Weed Science - http://www.isws.in/index.php - You can check the invasive plants in India
  2. India Water Portal - http://www.indiawaterportal.org/
  3. Krishi Vigyan Kendra's - http://www.icar.org.in/krishi-vigyan-kendra.htm or http://agritech.tnau.ac.in/kvk/kvkindia.html
  4. Indian Medicinal Plants Database - http://www.medicinalplants.in/
  5. Nabard - http://www.nabard.org
  6. National Centre of Organic Farming - http://ncof.dacnet.nic.in/
  7. National Medicinal Plants Board - http://www.nmpb.nic.in/
  8. Sanghavi Farm - http://www.savesanghavi.com/
  9. Subhash Palekar's Zero Budget Spiritual Farming - http://palekarzerobudgetspiritualfarming.org/home.aspx
  10. Self Reliance Movement (Thalanmai) (Tamil Online Magazine) - http://kaani.org/
  11. TNAU Agritech Portal - http://agritech.tnau.ac.in/
  12. Vanagam (Nammalvar's Farm) - http://www.vanagam.com/
  13. Rain Water Harvesting - www.malaineer.in