Traditional Technology Solutions

Presents

Organic Farming Methods – Part 6

Cultivation of sesame and its oil extraction

Presented by,

N. S. Santhana Krishnan,

Traditional Technology Solutions,

E-mail: sankrish@tts.org.in,

Website: www.tts.org.in .

Cultivation of sesame In this presentation we are going to discuss about cultivation of

sesame and its oil extraction. sesame have tendency to absorb high amount of nutrients from soil

and to grow well even at drought conditions. We started the cultivation at the starting of winter season since the

crop can grow using the moisture caused by morning dew drops. This cultivation took place in our lands situated in the Village

named “Thiru-Magaral”. We chose one acre for black gram cultivation. We also cultivated black gram in our ancestral residential plots in

Neyyadupakkam village. We didn’t irrigate the lands but used the monsoon rain and

moisture from condensed fog for cultivation.

We distributed the sesame seeds and ploughed the soil a day after rain

We allowed the sesame plant to grow naturally like weeds

without any human interference

Seeds got germinated as plants by seven days

Sesame plants gown around four inches high after fifteen days of seeding

Plants growth in twenty days

Plants after thirty five days

Plants after forty five days

Plants started developing sesame pods after sixty five days

The sesame pods got matured by ninety days

The pods got harvested manually by 95 days and collect in bunches

The harvested plant bunches were collected as a heap

A close-up view of stacked plants which are later covered with

tarpaulin sheet for three days for the grains to mature completely .

In this process even partially matured white seeds will also get

matured by turning black

After stacking the plants were dispersed to get completely dry. The

dried plant were beaten by stick in order to get the sesame seeds

Kindly note:

Simultaneously at Neyyadu pakkam village we sowed

sesame for 20 cents at our residential plots to avoid the weed

occupation.

Lets have a look how we cultivated sesame at this place in

the following slides.

We ploughed the land after dispersing the sesame seeds

Sesame plants got germinated

Plants growth after 30 days

Plants growth after forty five days

Plants growth after sixty days

Pods started to appear by seventy five days

We can notice matured black sesame by ninety five days

We harvested small amount but good quality of sesame seeds from

this place. We kept this sesame as seeds to sown in next season

Around 130 kg of sesame were soaked in water to dissolve added clay

particles.

We washed the sesame trice completely and filtered it.

We dried the cleaned sesame on terrace under sunlight

The sesame got completely dried for three days

We used 2 kg of Chemical free jaggery for every 10 kg of sesame to

expel oil from it.

We also used purified and RO,UV treated water to sprinkle over

sesame as lubricant in oil extraction process.

The oil got extracted in a cleaned wooden expeller by cold

pressing(temperature developed in this process was less than 40◦C).

We got light colored ( due to washing) aromatic sesame oil which was

allowed to stay Undisturbed for three days in order to settle down the

dispersed particles as oil cake. The clear oil was transfer in a cleaned

nylon can and stored in dark dry cold place

We burnt the sesame straw inside a oil drum to get clean ash

The ash can be dissolved in water and filtered to use as nutritious

insect repellant spray for next crop.

Conclusion:

We got good quality and quantity of sesame from small area.

We found that the land soil in which sesame was cultivated

retained moisture and their was a good sign of earth worm

activities comparatively to the Adjacent bare lands.

When we washed sesame to remove clay and dust we observed

black color substance from sesame external cover getting

dissolved in the water and made the water black .We stored the

water separately and testing its properties.

We found the ash of the sesame straw was highly alkaline

which has t be diluted well before applying to other crops.

Next time we are planning to transplant sesame saplings at

equal distance and compare its yield