WUA EMPOWERMENT FOR IMPROVED

IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT IN CHHATTISGARH

Chhattisgarh Irrigation Development Project (CIDP)

Asian Development Bank and the State of Chhattisgarh

Fourth Assignment Report

of the

Irrigation Agriculture Development Specialist(International)

James A. Litsinger

1-22 September 2007

KBR-JPS ConsultantsOffice: Water Resources State Data Centre, Sihawa Bhawan Complex, Civil Lines,

Raipur (CG) – 492 001+91-771-5532115; Tele-Fax: +91-771-2445117

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Table of ContentsIntroduction and Update...................................2TOR.......................................................4Coordination with the Department of Agriculture...........5Farming systems research..................................6Kharif rice crop.........................................12Preparation for rice training course.....................16Conduct of the kharif rice field trials..................19Rabi crops...............................................21

Constraints to rabi diversified cropping........................................................................21Selection and management of crops..............................................................................25Wheat.............................................................................................................................27

Farmers’ current practice...........................................................................................27IGAU recommended practice for wheat:...................................................................27

Gram..............................................................................................................................29Farmers’ current practice...........................................................................................29IGAU recommended practice for gram:....................................................................29

Sunflower.......................................................................................................................30Farmers’ current practice...........................................................................................30IGAU recommended practice:...................................................................................31

Source of inputs and credit............................................................................................31Rabi crop trials...............................................................................................................32

Introduction and Update

The International Irrigated Agriculture Consultant was mobilized for the fourth time during CIDP and this is his Duty Report covering the period 1-22 September 2007. The current list of my contacts is in Annex I and the details of the information acquired from those meetings is in Annex II.

There are seven Pilot Schemes selected by Package B out of the 200+ small and medium irrigation systems that the Project plans to rehabilitate and upgrade. Progress on R & U only know is showing some fruit as rehabilitation is scheduled for this coming dry season. Unfortunately there will be no upgrading of irrigation systems. To expedite the rehabilitation Package C has hired some more engineers to speed up the design of the planned improvements. Farmers have carried out the walk through with the WRD engineers for them to agree on the changes that they want but according to the newly hired engineer Jaime Bariaza the detail is too little for him to go on. He will have to visit each tank himself to take his own data, again slowing the progress of the project. As a result most of the progress in the

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agricultural component has been with farmers growing rainfed rice.

Of the seven schemes selected by the Package B team, two appear to be having some problems so Pakhanjore will be dropped and possibly also Darki. A new site in Bastar (Neota II which has 5 km of canal lined by the farmers) is being eyed for a replacement. Thus five Pilot Schemes are active in terms of the agricultural program. The ADB review took place 21-28 Aug with the Project Leader, Package B Team Leader and Deputy Team escorting the ADB team to Amakoni and Bilaspur tanks. The ADB team was composed of Plamen Bozakov and Mrs. Jaya Chakraborti. They were pleased with the progress of Package B and in particular with the support shown by the farmers and the progress in developing rice technology by the farmers themselves through field trials on rice. They saw agricultural field trials that showed savings from the current farmers’ practice in growing rice with less irrigation water and less fertilizer.

The team leader was in Orissa advising a similar project and returned 11 Sep. Philip Riddell and Mr. BO Joshi traveled to all five schemes to review the water management situation particularly with regard to plans for a rabi crop. Philip was here for 15 days and we overlapped for a day 4 Sep which was a work holiday. He left early the next day. Philip was asked by ADB to update the Chhattisgarhi State Water Sector Report that he did for ADB. In most sites the farmers at the head ends of systems find little reason partake in the project as they are getting water now and have no complaints. Thus our cooperators come mostly from areas that do not get water from the tanks. The problem that we in Project face is to involve the farmers who are getting water to meet with those that are not and come up with an irrigation plan to share the water. Those that are getting water admit that they are taking too much to the disadvantage of those at the tail ends but their attitude is that it is too bad. As a result most of our agricultural work is on rainfed rice where farmers direct seed and practice biasi for weed control. If farmers were receiving irrigation water they would transplant and would not undertake biasi. There is a danger that some of the work that we are doing now in rainfed agriculture will not be relevant when it is irrigated. Fortunately for our farmers 2007 has been a good rainfall year, the rains came on time and have occurred throughout the crop maturation period which is now two months in the field. According to Dr. Sahu

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he has not seen so much rain in Sep before. Most rainfed rice fields are in the stem elongation phase after maximum tillering while those that have been transplanted are a month more mature almost reaching panicle initiation. The tiller densities have been established in the plants and the only other intervention that can affect yield is timely fertilizer just before panicle initiation to encourage the plants to set more seed in each panicle.

Other consultants in Package B are Snehangshu Nandi who is JPS hired and is a PIM expert who will be here for six months. The translator who was hired a while ago is now translating the Training Plan and a hand out for the COs that I prepared in my second mobilization. He is about to finish these but the delay is in the typing into Hindi done by Nilesh.

The bidding for the NGO slots is now in its final stage with only ADB to make their final comments and approve of the process. Thus the NGOs for Packages A, B, and C should be decided by October. There were 2 NGOs bidding for Packages A and C with 3 NGOs for Package B.

Rainfall has been average for the Chhattisgarh plain but in Gej rainfall is less than half of the normal amount thus there is no possibility for a rabi crop there as the reservoir is only 26% full. Thus the consultant and the Domestic Agriculture consultant made three trips to visit four of the five sites, leaving Gej for a future trip as the rabi crop there will be very limited.

TOR

The main purpose of this consultancy was to begin planning for the rabi crop which will follow the rice harvest set to occur starting in mid November but also the review the progress of the field trials on rice being coordinated by the Community Organizers (COs) that will form the basis for the rice training curriculum. This includes monitoring rice fields to determine the causes of the field problems and validate the farmer interviews and surveys that formed the basis of the last two mobilizations.

Relevant Tasks taken from the consultant’s TOR presented in the First Duty Report:

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(i) Work with the staff of Department of Agriculture to review, assess, and synthesize data to determine the technical potential for diversified cropping and improved rice production and,

(ii) Identify and analyze technical, institutional, social, and economic constraints to diversified and rabi cropping in Chhattisgarh.

(iii) Work with Irrigation O & M and Water Management Specialists to identify the linkages between irrigation system and farm water requirements to improved agricultural production with an emphasis on rabi cropping.

(iv) Provide guidance for farmers in the rehabilitated schemes to help them develop and implement irrigation regimes that maximize the returns from irrigation water.

(v) Working with WUA Water Allocation and Distribution sub-committees to ensure planned release schedules optimal for the existing crop mix; develop methodologies to scale up under the Project that can be used to assure that planned release schedules are optimal for the existing crop mix.

(vi) Jointly work with the O&M Specialist to help develop alternative irrigation methods and regimes for various rabi crops.

Coordination with the Department of Agriculture

Regarding task (i), the Package B consultants have attempted to include the participation of the three Deputy Directors of Agriculture (DDAs) assigned to the Project. We included them in our travels to Pilot Schemes three times while I joined them and more times in Dr. Sahu’s trips. They do not like to leave early and stay overnight and want to return before dark thus they only stay a few hours during the visits and have limited interest in the workings of the project. Their interaction with farmers is often even

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disruptive to our training program by reprimanding farmers for not following DoA guidelines.

They have been given two vehicles and a separate cubicle and a designated computer for their work. Despite these incentives the DDAs want more (see attached Annexure prepared by Dr. Sahu. As can be recalled during my first mobilization during the period of the ADB review along with KBR, I had requested that the project write in the DoA. After deliberation WRD decided that the project would be entirely funded through itself with no monies going to the DoA. This failure is the root of the problems expressed by the DDAs. There now only two who come to work but have ceased to be interested in visiting sites. They do not like to stay long at the sites and prefer to stay in the office.

There are a number of useful tasks that the DDAs could perform such as coordinating our project with the local districts and using the Pilot Schemes as sites for their agricultural programs such as demonstrating new designs for compost pits but such suggestions are met with deft ears.

On several attempts we have met with local RAEOs in the field. Such meetings have been cordial but it is apparent they have their program already in place and we will not be able to depend on them as trainers. First there are very few of them in the field as the government has a hiring freeze and secondly they have a full workload and will always be at the beckon call of the District and cannot be depended on to show up at weekly training sessions.

As will be recalled on my first mobilization I called on the Project Director to write in the Department of Agriculture into the Project which also was recommended by the Project Design Team. WRD however wants to have 100% of control of the funds. Human nature being what it is, it is natural that the DoA is hesitant to devote resources to the Project. My expectation is that the DoA will be host to the District Curriculum Development workshops and that is it.

Farming systems research

There has been some confusion of the purpose of the field trials and why the agricultural program is being developed in a step-wise method that follows farming systems research development rather than setting out large scale demonstrations. CIDP is conducting a diversified cropping

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program which follows the tenants and principles of farming systems research including the training or extension component. Farming systems research was developed in the early 1970s with the objective of adding one more crop in the cropping cycle. IRRI developed the methodology for rice-based farming systems which became very popular throughout Asia until the late 1980s when other innovations such as farmer first research came into vogue. All of these methods were designed to be used in CIDP in the Training Plan.

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In an ideal world, CIDP would have followed Figure 1 where during the first year of the project the sites for intervention (tanks) and target villages would have been selected and the research teams would have begun to describe the current cropping systems by interviewing farmers, taking soil samples, monitoring for pests, and perhaps undertaking variety trials. In the second year the research teams and the farmers would design improved cropping patterns and come up with interim recommended practices for them which would have been tested on 0.1 ha plots replicated across farms. The reason for the tiny first steps can be born out by my 20 years experience in working in over 30 sites either directly or indirectly through visiting the locations of other research programs. Despite all of the brain power and experience of many of the research teams at the end of three years of testing there would have been significant changes in the recommended practices due to site variability based on a program of undertaking local trials as we have done in CIDP. In other words no one can visit a site and make a prescriptive recommendation that will be the most effective set of practices. One should be a bit humble and move cautiously. Plant growth follows the Law of the Minimum in that some 30 or so technologies are involved in growing a crop and if one or two are lacking yields suffer. There are always surprises to be found when working in a site in terms of environmental variances that were unknown or as well as socio-economic constraints that were not discovered until the team began to test the cropping pattern in the field.

Farming systems research has not come to Chhattisgarh as when I read the recommended practices for the prevailing crops there were technologies there that told me that little on-farm research has been done. Farmer adoption of modern technology is highly varied as a result. We know that the large-scale farmers can sort out the technologies better than the small-scale farmers. Our extensive interviews in the villages bore this out as well. We need to approach the problem of technology development in a stepwise fashion as if we go too fast and skip steps (Figure 2) and the technology fails by low yields or worse by crop failures on a large scale we will lose the confidence of farmers. But if we develop the technology with the farmers in small plots at the beginning, inevitable failures cause less harm to the cooperating farmers and we can move on.

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By scaling up rabi cropping at this stage is going too fast as we are much less sure of the technologies than for rice for example. On the other hand, rabi crops will require fewer technologies as there will be many problems if the irrigation can be assured. Rabi crops can avail of the fertility and moisture present in recently harvested rice fields and because these crops follow wetland cropping there will be few weeds or pests to contend with compared to rice. We still need to validate the varieties and fertilizer regimes and to find out what environmental factors are important and it is better to do this on a small scale trial than field size that if we fail the farmer also fails and we do not have the ability to compensate him for losses we caused.

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Kharif rice crop

We held meetings with a number of groups of farmers who mostly asked us questions on fertilizer and pesticide usage. We went with farmers to their fields to inspect the crop to diagnose problems they brought up as well as those we saw. Farmers had no idea of zinc deficiency which occurred in isolated locations for the most part but produced dramatic results when applied. They are very afraid that insect pests and diseases will get out of control and destroy their fields. They had experienced pest outbreaks in earlier years and as they lack technical knowledge of the damage potential of pests and do not monitor their fields they end up over-applying pesticides out of fear. Thus when farmers see even 2-3 plants damaged in a field, even though it is insignificant in terms of yield loss, they want to control the pest immediately. This fear is born out of ignorance of what damage different pest species are likely to incur. We as scientists know that 2-3 panicles damaged by a cricket or 2-3 plants damaged by a termite are not a threat to the farmer’s crop. They however do not know that, thus over-react by spraying pesticide needlessly.

Seed quality

Another problem is varietal mixtures that result from their practice of changing varieties frequently field to field therefore residual seed that falls during harvest spontaneously emerge as well as getting their seed from parts of the fields where mixtures are prevalent thus perpetuating the problem. Also removing small seed needs to be done before seeding by using salt solution or manual inspection of seeds. There is also evidence that farmers who say they are planting a certain variety actually have that seed. Thus seed source needs to be strengthened. For example MTU1001 is supposed to be resistant to gall midge but farmers who think they have that variety experience gall midge and say that it is not resistant. The problem may be that they do not have MTU1001. The most mixtures were seen in Beherakar.

Inorganic fertilizer application

For the most part fields looked fertile and growth was good. The site with the most problems in addressing infertility

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was in Beherakar. Farmers also have a tendency to over apply inorganic fertilizer to achieve the deepest green leaf color they can not knowing that it is excessive and can cause disease problems such as blast and BLB. Many farmers however are not aware of the different elements required such as NPK and think fertilizer is one thing rather than a group of elements each having its own optimal rate and timing. Farmers continually ask the COs for their advice on rates and dates of fertilizers and follow their advice so that there have been great improvements just in the short time of the project in this regard. Our recommended rate for NPK is 80-50-30 kg/ha with basal, maximum tillering, and one week before panicle initiation as the timing. All P and K should be applied basally with N applied at the other times. Farmers have no idea of the panicle initiation stage and apply 10-14 days too late after spikelet number has been decided. It has also just been learned that single superphosphate (SSP) is 16% P2O5 not 16% P. It is in fact 32% P so we will be recommending SSP instead of DAP in the future as great savings in cost.

Insect pests

Insect pests give farmers a very difficult time as they feel that if not controlled the insect pests will quickly take over the crop. On the other hand insecticides are inexpensive and as farmers underdose it is not too costly for them. Rice caseworm is the easiest insect pest of rice to control as research showed that essentially all insecticides tested provided adequate control. This cannot be said for the other insect pests. The fact that farmers cannot control them with insecticides means that they are not controlling other insect pests as well. Insect pests are stage specific and stemborers or gall midge cannot damage certain stages thus when farmers spray before these stages they feel that the low incidence was due to the spray when in fact the plant became more resistant. Some sites such as Balar and Bilaspur tank had some fields with high infestations of yellow stemborer as being the only threatening insect pest. Modern semi-dwarf rice can tolerate a surprisingly high amount of insect damage, particularly if not suffering from other stresses. Farmers however are unaware of this fact and are quick to spray at the first sign of damage. We were taken to distant fields to see a few hills of rice with damage that would not amount to 0.01% of the rice hills yet farmers wanted to spray. Beherakar had some fields that had threatening gall midge incidence

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whereas Amakoni had the highest insect pest incidence where fields with economic damage from caseworm and gall midge were noted. One field even had a threatening level of brown planthopper.

Insect namesChhattisgarhi Common name Damage Insect type

Tana chedah Yellow stemborer Deadheart/whitehead MothGangai Gall midge Gall or onion leaf FlyChitri banki Rice caseworm Whitish leaves MothChitri banki Rice hispa Whitish leaves Beetle

Leaffolders Whitish leaves MothGreenhorned caterpillar

Defoliation Butterfly

Grasshoppers Defoliation GrasshopperMaho bhawa Brown planthopper Wilt or hopper burn HopperGundy bug Rice bug Damages grains that

have brown spotsBug

Green stink bug Damages grains that have brown spots

Bug

Katydid Conocephalus

Damages grains that turn white

Cricket

Termite Remove roots, plants wilt

Termite

Gall midge resistant varieties:Mahamaya which was released in 1994 by IGAU, long maturing, multi-resistant including gall midge and high yielding 5-7 t/haMTU 1001 Modern variety resistant to gall midgeBamleshwari released by IGAU is medium maturing and resistant to BLB and gall midgeDanteswari, also 105 days variety by IGAU has resistant to gall midge

Weeds

Most of the fields in the cooperators’ were rainfed direct seeded thus the weed flora may be somewhat different for transplanted rice. We were not on site for most of the early stage in the direct seeded rice where early weeding is necessary to prevent economic loss. Due to the favorable rainfall, biasi operation was mostly on time but weeders continued to remove weeds throughout the crop cycle up to flowering. This does little good as far as helping the current crop but would prevent the seed load in the soil

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from increasing. No farmer we knew of used herbicides on a regular basis.

The most common weed was Cyperus iria followed by Ludwigia hyssopifolia. These occurred in all sites. Thus the biasi operation was very good at eliminating grasses.

Weed namesChhattisgarhi Latin Weed type

Sawa Echinochloa colonaE. crusgali

Grass

Dubi Cynodon dactylonEleusine indicaDactyloctenium aegyptium

Chuka, pulaytah Cyperus iria Cyperus difformis

Sedge

Fimbristylis miliceaeBoderu Ludwigia hyssopifolia

(yellow flower of 4 petals)Broadleaf

Cyanotis axillaris (purple flower of 3 petals)Commelina sp. (blue flower)

Mokala Hairy stemWater hyacinth Monochroria vaginalisE. colona can be identified from rice but E. crusgali is more difficult so difficult for hand weeding. After biasi sedges and broadleaves are dominant.

Ricefield wild rice Oryza spontanea (karga) is formed from the natural cross of wild rice Oryza nivara that grows in the ditches along side rice fields with rice Oryza sativa. Both wild rices have long awns and dark grains. Karga was commonly seen in rice fields in all sites and is a perennial problem that requires removing the plants before harvest. If the incidence of karga is high farmers are advised to grow red rice in order to eliminate the plants in the early growth stages.

Diseases

As far as our monitoring went we saw very little evidence of disease pressure. The common wind dispersed foliar diseases such a Cercospora leaf spot and narrow leaf spot were barely detected as most of the fields had solid green leaves with no discoloration from diseases. Only nutrient deficiencies were seen to discolor leaves. Farmers however cannot

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distinguish between any of these causes which are more mysterious than insect pests.

Plant disease namesChhattisgarhi Common name Type

Ghulsa, Sodi Blast FungusGhulsa, Bhutaya Bacterial leaf blight Bacteria

Preparation for rice training course

We continue to prepare for the rice training course scheduled for 2008 kharif which falls under task (iv). By that time the NGO will be in place and we can start the curriculum development process and training of trainers. On this trip the field visits were extremely important for us to pin point the relevant field problems that will be included in the curriculum. Based on the continuing field visits, the most important areas identified to date are seed quality, efficient nutrient management including farm year manure/compost, needless insecticide spraying, and timely weed control. Water management will also become central when we shift from rainfed rice to irrigated rice after the R&U is completed. As most of our cooperators come from the tail end of irrigation systems we are running what is basically a rainfed project. Most of our cooperators direct seed in dry soil broadcasting their seed and undertaking biasi weeding.

Dr Sahu is talking with farmers about what will need to be done at harvest season for the farmers to select one good field in their village of each of the major varieties which has the least mixtures and is free of wild rice. These will be used for the farmers’ seed in a process of purification that they can conduct themselves to acquire their seed for next year’s crop.

With the program of field trials we are jump starting the development of the adaptive farmer led research program that will fine tune nutrient rates and dates for each location. Farmers will need to develop skills in on-farm testing and first impressions are that they are interested in such a method. First our COs must master these skills and the results are mixed across sites. But after this first year they should all be up to speed. This trip we introduced taking tiller density samples with a 0.5m2 wire sampling frame and in some sites farmers assisted by entering the

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field to make the counts. Farmers will learn this skill in the training program. To achieve a 5 t/ha crop one needs 100-150 plants/m2 with each plant giving 3 full panicles. In one of our trials in Bilaspur we measured 235 and 245 tillers/0.5 m2 so our field is well within the tiller density required. We also take advantage of the tiller measurement to record deadhearts and gall midge damaged tillers at the same time. In the trial field we did not see a deadheart in the samples. But in Balar we measured 7% deadhearts and in Beherakar we measured a high of 77% galls from gall midge.

In each site the COs showed us fields where the farmers had asked them for advice on crop management practices with inorganic nutrient management as the most frequent query. In some instances the results were dramatic as compared to neighboring fields. The most dramatic was our diagnosis of zinc deficiency which resulted in brown rice becoming green in a few weeks. This has caused the esteem of the COs to be elevated and has brought about but also just proper timing, using balanced nutrients, and moderate rates farmers can see the difference. In Balar the COs are conducting farmer training classes in the school to groups of farmers. So far topics have ranged between what are the various fertilizer elements and what are the pests. It seems that farmers are eager to learn.

We also sold school books to selected farmers at discounted prices for them take records of information on crop management during the season. Not all farmers have paid as the COs were too kind to the farmers in this regard. In Khondtari one farmer showed us his book and when Dr. Sahu read it he was very impressed by the quality and extensiveness of the information recorded by the farmers. Later we will teach the farmer to calculate his profit.

The data can be used by farmers to record yield as well. This could be used in a class exercise after rice harvest. As farmers need local prediction of crop losses, this information should be most efficiently and effectively collected by the farm community. The suggested method to achieve this end would be for farmers to develop their own database of yields from each field in the community each season. They then could compare each crop to the yield potential determined by the database by taking accurate yield cuts as well as gathering data on input usage and crop stresses that were at least semi-quantified. Farmers would

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convene after each season and discuss their yields as well as management practices of those attaining the highest yields that season so that the low yielders could learn of management practices they should adopt the next crop. Through such an iterative approach, yields of the whole farm community could be gauged against the historical yield potential and farmers would have a basis from which to work to make improvements season to season. Policy makers (through local extension agents) could tap such databases each season by a simple survey of the farm communities to get regional and national crop loss assessment data.

In farmer field schools farmers learn to monitor their crop for signs of water loss, nutrient deficiencies, pests etc. In terms of insect pests the usual method is for the farmers to record pest incidence on a hill of rice but since there are so few pests present another method is suggested. We provided each site with an insect net and took sweep samples in the rice fields and dumped the content into a large clear plastic bag and showed this to farmers. They became fascinated at all the variety of insects and spiders seen. This could be used as a monitoring tool where each farmer group takes 15 sweeps from an unsprayed field and records the kinds of insects seen at periodic intervals in the crop. It is easier than squatting in place around a hill of rice as is done in other countries as the pest densities in Chhattisgarh generally are not high. We provided some collecting jars and alcohol for preservation of rice field arthropods which will form the pool of specimens that later each species will be separate out into a separate small vial for them to use for identification in farmer classes.

Empty jars were provided for placing egg masses, pupae and parasitized larvae for parasite or adult emergence. This is good teaching tool to learn of metamorphosis and the power of natural enemies. When farmers see wasps emerging from insect pests they become amazed and fascinated. They can learn to collect and hold specimens in bottles for emergence. It is also a good tool to learn when stemborer larvae will hatch from eggs. Egg masses can be collected and held and when they emerge it is a good time to spray if populations warrant this.

Several experiences have shown that all bodes well for Indian farmers to make good farmer field school trainers. In the caste system there is a tradition that the upper castes take care of the lower castes who belong to the marginal and

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small farm groups. This includes teaching them how to grow rice when they meet in the village centers. At times they will take them to show them their own farms. A demonstration of this social obligation occurred in Kharve where one farmer used zinc sulfate as a member of one of the field trial members. Once he saw the dramatic greening up of his field he told the other farmers from the lower castes who then came to his field to observe. This has tremendous impact for our training course. First it shows that farmers can become trainers as it is in their culture. Our trainers at first anyway will be selected from the upper caste group. Training courses may need to be structured by caste groupings – upper caste and lower caste – for best effect in the training courses.

On the other hand medium and large scale farmers who hire laborers to do the field work do not enter rice fields. This became apparent in our field visits as I went into the field while most of the farmer cooperators stood on the bund. Some of their laborers entered the field with me as did an occasional farmer but it shows that there is social status that dictates that those who get muddy are poor thus if one can they should not do field work or enter the field. We will see how important this is for the training courses. With marginal and small farmers who are themselves laborers there is no social stigma from being seen walking in muddy fields. As we will focus on this group it will not be a large problem but in the beginning when we want to recruit the medium farmers to be trainers it may be.

Conduct of the kharif rice field trials

This is the first time that the COs have conducted on-farm research and it was expected that the skills needed would have to be from on-the-job training as a senior experienced person cannot be with them during the season but only through periodic visits. Each visit will bring improvements in the performance of the trials the data collection in terms of the variety of information gathered.

All COs visited conducted field trials over some half dozen subjects such as inorganic nutrient management, need for zinc in some locations, water management, insect pest control, and early weeding. We still can introduce protection from dirty panicles which are caused by a variety of fungi with fungicides.

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For the water management and inorganic nutrient management trials the plot should have been bunded. Not all sites were able to do this as the crop was already in the field by the time the trials were planted so there was not a supply of mud. In the future such plots should be identified at planting.

Each of the trials was meant to be replicated on other fields with just one treatment such as water management. We also may include a package of recommended practices as a separate trial but most trials will look at only one variable. This is termed component technology where one subject such as early weeding is tried on 4-5 fields. In 4-5 other fields water management would be tested. In 4-5 other fields it would be not applying an insecticide while the farmer practice would be to apply. We will do better next year in this regard.

All the trial plots where the object of the trial was not weed control the plots should have been adequately weeded as if weeds become too numerous the yield will be overshadowed. A similar plot in the farmer’s field should have been identified and marked off and weeded as well.

Pointed bamboo stakes should be used to mark the plots as these can be pushed deep in the soil so that the stakes would be more permanent and not dislodged by local flooding.

As farmers become more trained they can undertake most of the tasks in each trial so that the CO will be freed from most of the work and will only supervise. But we need to keep in mind that each trial plot is a comparison to the farmer’s whole field so that we need different practices in each field.

In the field plots we are collecting a lot of data so we have developed a datasheet to use to record the data, one sheet of paper per field trial. On the datasheet are most of the key bits of information that will become important to interpret the yields from the farmer’s field compared to the field trial plot. Many factors can affect the yield and it is important to record as many as we can that may affect the yield so the data sheet is designed to do just that.

We also are preparing a news brief to send to the COs giving the summary of our findings as COs will probably not receive our report.

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Rabi crops

In response to task (ii) we have interviewed farmers in five of the Pilot Schemes in this mobilization as well as in the past mobilizations with regard to their experience with rabi crops. We can now better elaborate on the possible constraints that may occur.

Constraints to rabi diversified cropping

There are a number of constraints that limit farmers from growing a second non-rice crop after the kharif rice.

Farmers desire to grow irrigated rice in rabi season

Because of the Project goal to allow access of more farmers to water from the irrigation systems farmers should be discouraged from growing irrigated rice during the rabi season. If some farmers were to organize flooded rice culture it is difficult for others to grow an non-rice crop in dry foot culture as the water table will rise to cause water logging. In fact near the head of the Bilaspur dam farmers there want to grow irrigated rice because they cannot drain their fields due to the leaky dam. Their choice is not between growing irrigated rice and another crop but whether to grow a rabi crop or leave the fields fallow. The same problem is prevalent in Beherakar.

Even if this problem will be resolved by R&U from the Project farmers will still want to grow rabi season rice as it is more profitable. Because farmers have little experience growing non-rice crops in the rabi season, low yields are typical and if one does a quick profit analysis it will more times that not show that rice brings more profit. Until such a time as we develop appropriate cultural practices to bring yields up to levels where the non-rice crop brings a higher profit we are whistling in the wind trying to convince farmers to diversify and save water. India is facing shortages in wheat and cooking oil and thus is importing. Prices of oil seeds and wheat are increasing so the future looks bright for diversified cropping. What the Project needs to do is to train farmers on how to achieve higher yields than they now do.

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Lack of tertiary canal reticulation to the farmers’ fields

One of the large costs to farmers growing rabi crops is that much labor is required to construct irrigation channels linking the main canal to their field and to make furrows within the field. Once farmers make permanent linkages to their fields the cost will be reduced. Farmers will always need to make seasonal shallow furrows in their fields to distribute water evenly. Possibly we can mechanize this as much labor is needed annually. The trend in the rural areas is that farmers are finding difficulty in meeting their labor demands. Medium-scale farmers hire 7-8 laborers to do this work so it is no trivial task. Small-scale farmers do the work with family labor. Therefore the more that WRD can construct tertiary concrete canals closer to farmers’ fields the cheaper it will be for farmers to grow non-rice crops.

Lack of rainfall and short supply of irrigation water

A permanent constraint to diversified cropping is rainfall. If the rains fail during the kharif there will be limitations on rabi cropping of any kind as the kharif rice crop is the farmers’ priority. Farmers will need to be flexible to take advantage of a good rainfall year to expand production in order to compensate from low rainfall years. Water shortage realities underscore the need to conserve water during the kharif season as well as in the rabi season. But there are limits to how much this can be done and in low rainfall years diversified cropping will be limited in scale but the farmers should respond by growing crops that require less irrigation. Chickpea is one of these and commands a high price nowadays so it does not necessarily follow that crops which require more irrigation will earn more profit.

Lack of experience of farmers in diversified cropping

There is a wide range of experience among the sites and villages in the Project. It has been the larger-scale farmers who could afford bore wells and electric pumps that have attempted diversified cropping while the small-scale farmers have not had that option and thus lack the skills to grow rabi crops. Surprisingly there are some villages in Beherakar where farmers have no interest in growing rabi crops. Whether this is due to the fact that they see no way of getting water or lack the skills to grow a good crop remains to be seen once the irrigation systems are repaired

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and more functional and PIM is adopted but now there are places where farmers do not want to experiment on diversified cropping just yet. The Project’s farmer training on diversified cropping should overcome this problem. The purpose of growing rabi crops in a number of villages is for home consumption and the farmers are not looking at growing a cash crop. Their vision needs to be expanded.

Lack of locally tested technologies for rabi cropping

Non-rice cropping after rice harvest was found in the farmer survey exercises to be minimal at best. Growing crops after puddled rice requires different technologies than if non-rice crops are grown in upland soils. There is a need therefore to undertake on-farm research to develop effective technologies to make rabi cropping more efficient and profitable. This needs to be a focus in the training programs. Variety trials would be the first technologies to test locally as for example farmers grow the wheat that they purchase for home consumption and do not even know the name of the variety.

Farmers lack effective organizations to determine what crops to grow each year

The WUA should play a larger role in organizing farmers to make decisions on rabi crops to plant as farmers are not free to make their own choice here but must make them as a group. In some locations farmers have their own committees to make such selections but eventually the WUAs should perform this function. In many areas the WUAs are not able to do this now as farmers refuse to meet.

Lack of institutional development in community to support non-rice cropping

We are now working mainly with medium scale farmers for which purchasing seed and fertilizer for rabi cropping is not a problem. But when more small-scale and marginal farmers begin contemplating growing non-rice crops in the rabi season there will need to be available credit as well as inputs in the Society warehouses just as is the case with kharif rice. Since few farmers grow non-rice crops, the Societies are not prepared to supply the inputs. Some farm communities have Farmer Committees who have said they will order seed and fertilizer through the DoA District Office which in turn will contact the Raipur based seed supply

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entity to provide the necessary varieties and fertilizer. A smooth flowing and well run system needs to be instilled in local Societies to make this happen as it does in kharif rice. Right now however obtaining seed and inputs may be a problem. The sooner the farmers can identify what rabi crops they will grow in a particular year the better able the societies will be in ordering the right seed. Due to fickle rainfall this choice may change year to year as in low rainfall years crops with one irrigation will be optimal while in a good rainfall year crops with 4-5 irrigations will be favored. This calls for flexibility in the seed supply chain which may be difficult to organize. The private sector may have to play a larger role in supplying seed and the Society can provide credit, fertilizers and pesticides.

Delayed planting of rabi crops

If farmers plant long maturing varieties or sow late in the kharif season, the optimal season for rabi cropping may be lost. Thus advance planning is necessary on the part of farmers to allow early rice harvest to create ample time for rabi crops to mature before the hot season approaches. Sometime the hot season occurs in February which will affect seed viability greatly limiting yield. Thus the winter cool season may be short and followed by very hot weather. Sunflower is probably the best choice if farmers are forced to plant late.

Lack of farming implements for dry foot culture

There are a number of field implements that can be used to facilitate crop husbandry of diversified crops but farmers do not have these and do not even know about them. No farmer interviewed for example had heard of a seed drill for wheat or sunflower nor of an implement that can make furrows for seed or irrigation water. These are labor saving tools and until we introduce them to the local communities some farmers may chose not to grow diversified crops due to labor requirements that their families cannot provide.

Selection and management of crops

Our interviews with farmers revealed a high diversity in preferences for crops for the rabi season. Most farmers preferred wheat, gram, or sunflower but in some areas they opted for groundnuts or vegetables. Most of the crops will be grown for home consumption but if there is extra they

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will sell to the Society or in the case of sunflower to a middleman. They would store more wheat or chickpea in their homes for their use later but have to sell because they cannot control stored product pests.

Farmers will get water from the main canals or laterals and make tertiary canals by hand to their fields using a spade. Fields will mostly be small and farmers will irrigate from shallow furrows dug in a checkerboard fashion. Irrigation will be block by block taking advantage of the natural 2-4% slope present in most fields to move the water laterally across each block. When the water reaches the other side of the block they stop the flow and open the next block. Blocks are 3-4 m squares and one block is irrigated at a time starting with the upper most block and so on until the whole field is irrigated. We will encourage row sowing of rabi crops but many farmers broadcast seed. Wheat for example is broadcast sown so irrigation furrows will uproot some plants.

Farmers normally plow their fields 3-4 times with the same shallow chisel plow used in rice. This operation, however, dries out the soil and the plowing delays planting and eventually we hope to mechanize this operation but now we will recommended the farmers’ method. Row sowing for wheat is 25 cm apart while sunflower is wider at 30 cm.

We expect few pest problems on diversified crops planted after puddled rice. The small areas devoted to diversified crops plus the growing of one crop per year reduces the apparency of the crop as a host to pests. In addition flooding during the rice crop eliminates many soil pests. The shifting between a wetland habitat and a dryland habitat does not let any weed group dominate thus weeds are kept off balance and cannot continue reproducing as species change as the environment changes. There are no soil nematodes, bacterial wilt, or damping off that plague upland soils. Only a few pest problems are anticipated as a result. Stray cattle are controlled by the farmers taking turn as watchmen particularly after flower to harvest. Monkeys feed on the stems of sunflowers and groups enter fields during the day so guards will be needed to keep them away.

Algae and other water borne plants contribute to the organic matter and the shallow rooted rice does not capture all of the nutrients in the soil thus crops such as Lathyrus can be grown successfully without added inorganic fertilizer. This

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is why IGAU recommendations for diversified crops meant for upland environments are inappropriate for wetland environment. We will recommended NPK applied basally with the seed and covered by the pata or leveling plank and followed up at the second irrigation with urea.

As the soils are plowed the first irrigation is needed at sowing and followed by other irrigations depending on the crop given below. Farmers also use a pick tool (kudali) to assist in making furrows as well as loosening the soil between rows at the time of the first irrigation which mixes in urea and controls weeds. The effect is similar to that of using a small rake.

Dr. Sahu and I visited the Department of Agricultural Engineering at IGAU with the head of the Department R.K. Sahu and Er. Varma regarding the bullock powered seed drill for testing planting of rabi crops. They said the seed drill is difficult for bullocks to pull unless the soil is in workable condition at 14-18% moisture known as batar by farmers. They recommended the tractor powered version which they mass produce. We said that the soils are mostly light (matasi) in our project sites thus the bullock powered version may work. They suggested that we arrange a time when the COs can convene for a one day training program to learn how to operate a bullock powered seeder. We need to give them time to arrange such a training but can do it for us. The drill seeder is good for wheat, gram (small seeded), and linseed but not sunflower. For sunflower there could be an implement to make furrows and then farmers can hand seed. It may cost about Rs4,400 ($107).

In addition we found that they have an attachment for the common bullock powered chisel plow that can make furrows useful for irrigation and would take less time and effort than hiring gangs of laborers to work with hand tools. Again they do not mass produce this but could make some for us on order. They estimate it would cost Rs1200 ($29)

Lastly we talked about an implement that could be used to hill-up sunflower that is a small moldboard plow which would make two passes for each row of sunflower turning over the soil onto the base of the plants 20-30 days after emergence. It also would cost about the same as the furrow opener. We could bring these implements to farmers for testing during the time of rabi planting.

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Wheat

Farmers’ current practiceMost farmers have had experience growing wheat. Yields are generally 1 t/ha as the management is poor. First of all farmers previously selected wheat from purchases of wheat grains to make into flour rather than buying seed in an agricultural outlet thus they did not even know what variety they were growing. Planting date is important for wheat as the winter season is short thus if the crop is planted late it will mature in hot weather causing sterility. Thus it is important for the farmers to plant by mid December.

They apply DAP at 1.5 bags/acre (21 kg N and 21 kg P/acre) (50 kg N and 50 kg P/ha) and a second application of 25 kg urea/acre 25-30 days after crop emergence (11.5 kg N/acre)(28 kg N/ha) timed with the first irrigation.

The only pest is stemborers which they may or may not spray.

Farmers expect yields of 1 –1.8 t/ha which are low. They expect a price of Rs8/kg thus gross income ranges between Rs8,000-14,000/ha (Rs3,200-5,600/acre). The fertilizer costs Rs526/acre (Rs1262/ha) and irrigation fees are Rs100/acre (Rs240/ha).

IGAU recommended practice for wheat:Make sure the soil is soft before plowing 3-4 times to break the clods into small pieces. If need be irrigate before the first plowing. In addition use the tines of the pata harrow to break the clods further.

A seed drill pulled by a tractor is preferred but if not then broadcast the seed at 40 kg/acre if sowing by Nov 15 but if later sow at 52 kg/ha.

If sowing before Nov 15 the following varieties are recommended:

Lok1WH147DL803-3 = KanchanGW190GW273GW322Raj 1555HI1077HI8381

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HI8498

If sowing later select from:Lok1J405SwatiHD2327GW173DL788= Vidisha

Make irrigation furrows in a 3 x 3 m checkerboard fashion and irrigate block to block

Irrigate 4 to 6 times as needed

Fertilizer based on soil testAll P and K basal and half the NThe other half of N to be applied at panicle initiation

If sown before Nov 15:120 kg N/ha40-60 kg P/ha30 kg K/ha if deficient

If sown later60 kg N/ha20-30 kg P/ha15 kg K/ha if deficient

Tips to higher yields:Use new varietiesUse certified seedUse Bavistin or Thiram seed treatmentTimely sowingUse micronutrients according to the symptoms exhibitedDon’t over water to create water logging

Gram

Farmers’ current practice

Farmers do not apply fertilizer as there is enough natural nutrients in the rice soils for this legume to grow. We will need to determine if there is bacterial activity in the root zone and if nitrogen is fixed. There are two irrigations, one at sowing and one at 5-10% flowering. If irrigation

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after flowering there will be few flowers so this calls for critical timing.

There are no weeds but there is a disease wilt and a podborer. Farmers do nothing for the wilt as when it comes the crop is essentially over. Farmers in Pandaria, Beherakar apply endosulfan 35% EC spray for podborer and place two capsfull (30ml) of insecticide per 15 liter sprayerload for 1 acre or 0.05 kg ai/ha which is underdosed by a factor of 9. The rate should be 0.4 kg ai/ha and should be timed with early flowering. They should spend Rs 260/acre but instead spend only Rs29 but there is no possibility of insect control with such a low dosage.

They expect to harvest 2 quintal (200 kg) per acre (0.48 t/ha) and fetch Rs15-20/kg. They sell all of the crop and earn Rs7,200-9,600/ha (Rs 3,000- 4,000/acre) before expenses.

IGAU recommended practice for gram:

Kanhar black soils are best but light Matasi can also be okay.If the field is dry irrigate before land preparation.2-3 plowings with desi plow. If heavy soil use tined pata harrow to break the clods followed by the plank pata to compact the soil.

Small seeded varieties are recommended:JG74JG315JG11BharatiVijayGCP101HAKI 9516

Large seeded varieties:VG265VibhavVGD72

Intermediate:JGG1

Bold varieties:Sweta

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KOCK2JGK1

Seeding rate is 75 kg/ha or 31 kg/acreIf late sown after Dec 10 use 100 kg/ha or 42 kg/ha

Seed treatment with Thiram fungicideUse Rhizobium culture + PSB culture @ 5g/kg seedMake a water slurry and mix seeds and let dry

Broadcast seed, apply fertilizer, and coverAll fertilizer is applied basally:

20 kg N/ha50 kg P/ha20 kg K/ha

Irrigate to germinate the seeds and once more before floweringMake irrigation furrows in a 3 x 3 m checkerboard fashion and irrigate block to block

Pod borer control:Use NPV virus if available or else spray cypermethrin @ 10 g ai/ha at 10% flowering and 15 days later

Sunflower

Farmers’ current practice

Sunflowers are sown by hand in 30 cm by 30 cm distances and a few seeds are dropped at each spot and after germination are thinned to one plant per hill.

Farmers can take sunflower to local extractors to expel oil that they use in cooking. In Bilaspur farmers like to grow taller sunflower varieties to offer more protection from monkeys.

The number of irrigations is 3-4 and farmers will irrigate every 2-3 weeks depending on needs of the crop. They can tell when the plants begin to droop that water is needed.

Farmers expect a yield of 6-7 quintals/acre (1.4 t/ha). Farmers expect to receive Rs15-18/kg for sunflower which they say is attractive to them. As an oil seed it has a government support price. Gross income is Rs21,000/ha (Rs8750/acre).

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IGAU recommended practice:

Composite varieties Modern, JwalamukhiHybrids are KBSH1, MSFH8, MSFH17, and DRSH108.

Land preparation as in gramSeed rate is 10 kg/ha

Make furrows 30 cm apart and place 2 seeds in hills 60 cm apart in the furrows. Thin to 1 plant per hill.

5-6 irrigations (land preparation and germination = 2 irrigations) followed at 20-25 d intervals 3-4 times

Basal fertilizer is: 30 kg N/haP = 90 kg/haK = 60 kg/ha

Before flowering apply 30 kg N/ha second application before irrigation

Source of inputs and credit

The Seed Corporation located in Raipur is a branch of the DoA which has the role of producing all the seed to stock the Societies in the state. They operate some 9 seed farms and along with the seed farms of IGAU fulfill the needs of the Societies. Before each cropping season the Societies make their seed needs known to the District DoA offices who pass these orders on to Raipur. A committee composed of members of the DoA and IGAU meet to determine where the seeds shall be grown to meet the demand and will include the new varieties that have been developed. We visited the Corporation office to obtain a list of the varieties that they have on hand for this coming rabi season as a way of letting the Pilot Schemes know what is possible in terms of crops and varieties for the farmers.

Rabi crop trials

We began planning for on-farm trials for the rabi crops to continue the farmer-led research program. From interviews it became apparent that farmers lack appropriate implements for dryland farming. Certainly of great importance would be for farmers to test seed drills which would save time in

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planting. We will coordinate with the Agr Engineering Dept to obtain drills that the farmers can test out this rabi crop season. Also of use would be an implement that could make irrigation furrows that would be animal drawn as now farmers need many laborers to construct these that will create labor shortages. We also want to seek interrow cultivators to assist in hilling up. Also being planned will be variety trials of the three rabi crops plus Lathyrus that will be run by farmers. Fertilizer trials are also in order and will be set up along with seed rate treatments.

We contacted the Agricultural Engineering Department and they can assist us first by putting on a one-day training program for the COs on how to use the bullock powered seed drill. We can purchase them for about Rs 4,400 with the purpose of farmers testing them at each site to see if the local soils are appropriate so the drills will easily move in the soil with bullock power. If not then only the more expensive tractor powered units can be considered which have greater draft. There is also a furrow opener that can be attached to the desi plow that would cost Rs1200. Finally hilling up sunflower could be done with a moldboard plow that they make for the same price. All of these could be demonstrated.

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Key Informant Interviews

Balar Medium Irrigation SystemVisitation Schedule:Fri Sep 7 2007 leave Raipur 10AM arrive Kasdol 12:30PMPM to Pisid villageHotel Abhishek & Mangal BhawanSat Sep 8 10AM to Kharve 3PM to SemariaHotelSun Sep 9 10AM to Charod 3PM leave KasdolArrive Raipur 6PM

COs : Mr. Sourabh Tiwari (Agr)Mr. Abhishek Tiwari (Agr)Ms. Abha Ekka (PIM)Ms. Sandhya Dewan (PIM)

Balar serves 48 villages and the project has selected some 9 whose members are the most cooperative, 3 tail end, 2 middle, and 1 head end. There are 4 WUAs but there has not been a common meeting between them to decide when to open the irrigation canals. To date no canal is open and the farmers are relying on rain water and the overflow from the dam which is full. As of mid September there still were heavy rains thus most farmers may be able to grow rice rainfed this year saving most of the reservoir for rabi crops. Farmers can take supplemental irrigation water in the kharif from the overflow. The common meeting topic will be to decide on when to open the canal and what they want to do regarding a rabi crop. But surely the tail enders will not be able to be irrigated, but the head enders will. The only discussion will be the middle ones. They also need to decide what rabi crops they want to grow. Farmers can afford to purchase their own inputs as we are mostly working with the better off medium-scale farmers who are the leaders in the villages. They are of the upper chastes. They rent land from the large landholders in the site who themselves do not farm. In the caste system there is a tradition that the upper castes take care of the lower castes who belong to the marginal and small farm groups. This includes teaching them how to grow rice when they meet in the village centers in the afternoons and evenings. At times they will take them to their own farms to demonstrate a point. A demonstration of this social obligation occurred in Kharve where one farmer used zinc sulfate as a member of one of the field trials.

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Once he saw the dramatic greening up of his field he told the other farmers from the lower castes who then came to his field to observe. This has tremendous impact for our training course. First it shows that farmers can become trainers as it is in their culture. The farmer field school trainers, at first will be selected from the upper caste group. Secondly training courses may need to be structured by caste groupings – upper caste and lower caste – for best effect in the training courses.

Kharif rice crop

The rice crop in Balar looks in excellent shape as this has been a banner year as far as rainfall, so much so that there has been little use for even supplemental irrigation. The main problems have been weeds which farmers have not had sufficient labor to remove. They all know the importance of removing weeds but as they do not use herbicides need to find the labor for hand weeding. Labor however is hard to find. If and when irrigation does arrive farmers will be facing the same problem in arranging labor to transplant. Transplanted rice culture will have the effect of reducing the need for labor later on for weeding as the ponding and older age of rice will provide more weed control. But there will be the same high labor demand for tranplanters. So there will be a tradeoff between labor for transplanting and weeding. This may force some farmers to think about direct seeding pregerminated rice (wet seeded rice).

There are surprisingly few insect pests and diseases in the fields. The only insect of significance is stemborer and the only disease is bacterial leaf blight, with the former being more abundant. There are fields where we could not even find a fungal leaf spot of any kind, thus the leaves can operate at full photosynthesis from maximum leaf area. This should produce some very high yields for those farmers who were able to apply their fertililzer in timely fashion using adequate rates of NPK. The rains should diminish and bring clear skies toward the ripening stage when solar radiation is so needed for obtaining high yields.

Pisid

Insect pests are of particular concern for farmers and they have found stemborer and brown planthopper so far as pests. They want to know what insecticides to use. We visited a

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farmer who was going to use phorate granules on his crop because of stemborer. He was unsure of the density of deadhearts but felt that if he did not control the stemborer he may lose his entire crop. He had purchased 1 kg of Volphor 10%G for Rp 50 made by Tata Rallis and he was going to apply that to 1 acre. As it is a 10% formulation this would be the equivalent of 0.1 kg ai/acre or (0.24 kg ai/ha) half the recommended rate of 0.5 kg ai/ha. He applied it by mixing it with urea to give it bulk.

The recommended insecticide for spraying stemborers is chlorpyrifos as phorate requires standing water to be effective. According to the COs farmers have found buprofezin or BPMC that will be recommended for brown planthopper if ever it would appear. We visited a field of the one farmer who just applied insecticide to his rice crop for stemborer. Indeed there were moderate levels of stemborer deadhearts in an elongating crop which otherwise was in good condition without any other problems. We requested the COs to make an experiment to have an untreated plot in such a field to see if there are benefits from control. We did not think that the situation warranted insecticide treatment for the following reasons:

1. The crop had only stemborer as a stress, otherwise the crop was vigorous

2. We estimated less than 10% deadhearts and a crop in this good condition can tolerate 20% or more, with the only caveat that it is the monsoon season and days are cloudy. We had in fact just had a heavy rain so the rains are continuing but based on the fact that rains will be diminishing there should be sunny days ahead during the crucial ripening stage

3. Dissecting the stems showed that the population was in the mid-larval stage so it will be 2-3 weeks before the moths emerge to lay the next generation of eggs.

4. We did not see any egg masses or adults while walking the field, thus if the farmer were to spray there is nothing that the insecticide can kill (it cannot reach the larvae in the stems)

5. The crop will have natural resistance to penetration of the young larva as soon as elongation is over thus the farmer should wait as the next vulnerable stage is panicle elongation

6. There were moderate population levels of natural enemies seen mostly as spiders and dragonflies which will kill the adult moths preventing egg laying.

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Kharve

Farmers said their problems were stemborer and gall midge which strangely do not tend to occur together. Wild rice (karga) is also a problem particularly for early maturing rices such as MTU1010 as they cannot tell the species apart when they are young and often uproot rice plants trying. Virtually all fields are direct seeded in dry soil and biasi was performed. In many fields the plant and tiller density is low and this will limit yield. Farmers do not flood their fields early in the season for land soaking that also would control weeds by depriving them of oxygen. They understand that early ponding before and during land preparation will kill weeds but they do not pond. In late plantings some farmers will sow by direct seeding pre-germinated rice (WSR) to control weeds. There is some merit for support for WSR due to labor shortages. Transplanted rice (TPR) saves labor in transplanting but farmers need labor to weed while in dry seeded rice (DSR) farmers save labor in crop establishment but it is needed in weeding. WSR minimizes both of these concerns as the high seeding rates cause denser stands and more weed control.

There are four farmer-cooperators on rice trials. One on zinc, one on early weeding, and two using all recommendations. Pest monitoring has been done with farmer groups four times where all farmers visit the fields of the others. There will some trials established on stemborer control testing the farmers’ insecticide practice with untreated to see if rice compensates. A field of Swarna did not show zinc deficiency as it is longer maturing and the farmer had used high amounts of FYM. Swarna is susceptible to bacterial leaf blight as is HMT1010. We saw a field heavily infested with wild rice where the incidence was one in 20 plants was wild rice. Competition for nutrients is serious with this tall weed which has 6 or so stout tillers. The farmer would have a difficult time in eliminating it from his field as the seed is in the soil. The grains shatter so it is difficult to keep the seeds from falling when it sets seed. The seed has some value and there is one festival where the people eat only food that has not been cultivated, and wild rice growing in drainage canals is harvested for this purpose. One field had some incidence of bacterial leaf blight on HMT1010 and the RAEO recommended Agroderma a kind of Trichoderma (microbial fungicide) application for it. We have serious doubts that this could

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work but on the other hand there is not much to recommend. Perhaps farmers who experience this disease in their field should apply FYM in the following years. Otherwise there are some resistant varieties.

Semaria

We spent a few hours walking along the rice fields and saw some of the plots that were established by transplanting just as a demonstration. There was another trial we saw where the plots were weeded but the weed infestation was not high. Mostly there was damage from stemborer but in no field was it as high as we saw in Pisid, still farmers wanted to know what to do about it. In the field we saw our first stemborer adult and in no field have we seen eggs, meaning that the population is all in the stems. We saw a field that had some rice caseworm damage near the outlet but the damage was only barely noticeable. Farmers mentioned gall midge but none were ever seen. There are no foliar wind dispersed fungal disease symptoms.

Charod

A tour of the rice fields took us on a loop to see some of the trials as well as some of the fields farmers wanted us to see. We saw a field that looked like it had P or K deficiency symptoms as it was not a disease. A number of fields were less dense due to biasi removing rice plants but the crops in general looked good. Some had symptoms of overuse of N as fertilizer is not expensive and some farmers tend to overuse it. Farmer monitoring groups are using the IRRI leaf color chart to make some of these decisions. The main two weeds in the whole area are both tall and tower over rice. Their local names are chuka (the word for sedges) Cyperus iria and a broadleaf called badai or badau which has a yellow flower and is very woody. More than half of the farmers have good weed control but the remaining have moderate levels with these two weeds distributed unevenly in a field. Competition for nutrients definitely will decrease yields from these two weeds. Farmers have difficulty in arranging for weeders so the damage is done. The trials on early weeding are bound to show large yield differences. One trial on water management had a high weed population which could not be removed in a timely fashion so will affect the trial. In such cases we need to mark off the yield cut areas and be sure they get full weeding in the future.

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The main problem mentioned by farmers was stemborer. We brought our insect net and 0.5 m2 wire frame and entered into a few fields to catch arthropods in the canopy and preserve specimens in alcohol for use in training programs. The farmer that went with us looked into the plastic bag in which the net contents was dumped and was surprised that very few pests could be seen in the sample and that most arthropods that were caught were spiders. We did collect a few grasshoppers that defoliate rice. These are adapted to wetlands and are smaller than the locust type. We did pick up a specimen of Conocephalus a katydid which is a good egg predator of stemborers. In the same field we took several 0.5 m2 samples with the wire frame held over the crop by one person while a second person counted the deadhearts after pulling each out to verify that they were caused by stemborers. We took the deadheart counts from the most densely infested areas. We then counted all of the tillers. In one sample there were 356 tillers per m2 then calculated 7-8% deadhearts. Stemborers lay their eggs in masses thus damage tends to be clustered and we took samples from these clusters so the average of the field will be less, nevertheless the density of damage can certainly be tolerated by the crop without spraying. After seeing the contents in the net and from the counts we made of the percentage of deadhearts the farmer was convinced that there was no need to spray. This was the lead farmer in the village and when we returned he immediately instructed another farmer on what he had learned so farmers do share their knowledge.

Farmers complained of a shortage of DAP in the Society and instead use Gaimol or 28-28-0 or 20-20-0-13. The last is sulfur. There is suspicion on the part of the farmer that some of these sources are adulterated.

Kharif field trials

There are trials in all 9 villages but the COs tended to combine treatments into single field plots rather than having only one variable tested in a plot with other farms as replicates. The latter was preferred but the message got mixed up. As a means of being able to undertake statistical analysis of single field trials we need to replicate the treatments. This can be readily done after the fact if the size of the plots is a single bunded field which is often the case rather than just one plot of the intervention practice in a larger field. In the case where the plot size

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is a bunded field, we can take 5 25m2 yield cuts in each field.

Rains were heavy in some villages and washed away the bamboo stakes from the 4-5 trials so the location was lost. The most dramatic effect has been the respone of rice to zinc sulfate. Farmers are really excited as they have seen good crop vigor after using 10 kg/acre or even as low as 7 kg of zinc even when applied a month after crop emergence.

Topics of field trials:1. Early weeding and weed free plots compared to farmers

weeding. Farmers in Balar almost 100% dry seed and undertake biasi and hand weeding for weed control. They do not flood their field early in the season for several weeks to kill weed seeds during land soaking as is done in other areas. This was a good rainfall year in that the rains came early and were continuous thus farmers were able to conduct biasi on time with good effect. Consequently there are not many fields which are really weedy, but just the same there are fields where there are significant weed problems. These are from farmers who were not able to make as many passes in biasi and have a hard time getting weeders. The fields were mostly seeded at about the same time and there is uniform maturity across the landscape. The crop is now in tiller elongation phase and most fields have very good weed control while some 15% or so have patches of weeds. Women can be seen in some fields hand weeding. They are removing these plants which will prevent them from setting seed and increasing the weed load for the next rice crop as the damage to the rice has already occurred. This is why early weeding is important. Next year we will test several post-emergent herbicides which will be directed against young weeds. These are several contact herbicides and easier to use than the pre-emergent kinds. Farmers in Balar as elsewhere do not use herbicides because they did not know how to apply pre-emergent ones and as it takes some training to learn have had poor luck so have given up. There are several species which dominate: Cyperus iria (a tall sedge) and Ludwigia hyssopifolia (a tall broadleaf) both of which rise above the canopy of rice. They are both at full growth and are flowering and are well rooted as it is difficult to uproot them being large sturdy plants. These are the most important in terms of yield loss as they shade out the

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rice as well as compete for nutrients. One broadleaf weed was noted in a few fields which is low stature but numerous. Wild rice (karga) is potentially the most damaging and one field in Semaria was found where > 10% of plants were wild rice. Wild rice grows tall, a habit it probably evolved in association with tall traditional rices. It is also of equal size of rice as it can produce 8 or so tillers. It is long leaved and the drooping leaves rise up to 20 cm above the rice canopy at this stage. Its damaging effect is not in shading out the rice, however, but competes for nutrients. In the early maturing rices such as MTU 1010, farmers have the most difficulty in distinguishing it from rice in the early stages and in their attempt to uproot plants also uproot rice. Karga is not as important in later maturing varieties.

We expect to measure significant yield gain from even removing the moderate weed levels that this year brought. Last year the rains came very early but did not last and the farmers had to replant their fields several times. As a result of plowing their fields after 2-3 rain events they destroyed the weeds following a recommended weed control practice called the stale seedbed method just by chance but with great effect. This year was different but the timely removal of weeds last year has reduced the seed load in the rice soils. Thus in Balar there are only two weeds that are important. Unfortunately they belong to two different weed classes – sedges and broadleaves – and will require mixing two types of herbicides if we chose to test them next year. Surprisingly absent were grasses such as Echinochloa which is normally present but were controlled no doubt by biasi.

2. Fertilizer rates and timing – recommended practice vs farmers’ method

Given that the pest situation involves only a few pests we will devote more resources to optimizing fertilizer application. In the future crop will also include farm yard manure (FYM) and compost. We are too late to introduce this in 2007. Zinc deficiency was the most commonly observed problem but occurred in only a few places. Interestingly an area that had a number of fields showing the symptoms had one without symptoms thus zinc deficiency is spotty. Here the farmer had applied greater amount of FYM thus it is probable that there is ample zinc in the soil but at low organic content the soil

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chemistry is not such that allows zinc to be in an available form for the crop to take up. FYM and compost probably create a better soil evironment by changing soil pH. This is why we will encourage more farmers to get their soil tested so we can learn of more of the interaction between zinc content and pH. Our visit to the soil testing lab in Raipur revealed that about half of the soils tested are zinc deficient. Another factor is that longer maturing rices such as Swarna can tolerate zinc deficiency better. We have found few farmers who have even heard of zinc and zinc fertilizers so our COs are making a big and immediate impact such that their respect among farmers is at a high level. This will allow our program to receive good support among farmers as they can see benefits. Now our COs are on call by the farmers and their cell phones are buzzing! If Dr. Sahu gave out his cell phone number he would not have peace and quiet at home. Two zinc sulfate products were found in some input shops. Zinc sulfate at 10% concentration where a 5 kg bag cost Rs 120. a second better value product was High Zinc that was 25% and a 5 kg bag cost Rs165. Farmers have had good results with rates of 7-10 kg per acre.

3. Insect pest and disease control testing farmers’ methods versus recommended methods

Here the COs need more input from us as to what to do. IPM is a complex issue where we are not just going to solve each problem with a pesticide. One farmer was approached by a pesticide salesman who told him to mix four different insecticides together which included 250 ml bottles of imidacloprid, cypermethrin, chlorpyrifos, and endosulfan into a cocktail. The farmer purchase them for Rs 500 and sprayed the cocktail on his field. The CO said that he could not see any pest problem so the farmer was wasting his time and threatening to upset the ecological balance in his field.

We visited two pesticide dealers in Kasdol and checked what products they had that we could recommend. The dealers who are not farmers and have no farm land were making recommendations based on what salespeople told them. One said the most popular products were monocrotophos and chlorpyrifos which are broad spectrum and cheap. Pesticides are inexpensive in India thus farmers can afford to purchase them. Our job in training will be to reverse this trend and train them to recognize when it is economical to treat.

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We made some sampling frames out of 3 m of heavy wire (Rs10) that are 0.5 m2 area (71 cm x 71 cm) that can be placed over the crop by one person holding it still while a second person counts tillers and deadhearts or gall midge damaged leaves. In this way we can begin to gather data on pest densities in a quantitative way as it is our purpose to carry out statistical analyses of our field trials.

I entered 5 or so fields in each village we visited and looked for insect pests, natural enemies, and diseases while walking around a bit. First of all it is remarkable that no symptoms of wind dispersed fungal diseases were noted as the leaves were absolutely clean of brown spots of various diseases known to attack rice. Blast was not recorded. The only disease was a few fields showing some bacterial leaf blight and even in these fields the incidence was unremarkable. The farmers of course wanted to know what to do. First we noted what varieties were affected which seemed to be the later maturing types such as Swarna and HMT. There is no pesticide for this soil borne bacterial disease. Because there are so few other stresses on the crop we believe the crop can readily tolerate the levels of damage seen. This does not appease the farmers however who want to spray something.

Insect pests observed were mainly stemborer deadhearts and there is only yellow stemborer present at economic densities. But the good growing conditions this season are encouraging thus it is believed that crops can tolerate even the most infested fields this year. There were surprisingly few other insect pests seen. A few damaged leaves < 1% of leaffolder were found and a few moths seen in the field but the densities are very low. In one field we saw some caseworm that damaged 10% of plants in one end of a field near an outlet (the caseworm larvae probably floated with the current to collect there). Larvae in cases were shown to the COs as well as the bright white adult moth. We saw another caseworm species that feeds on aquatic weeds and not rice which the COs also saw, it has black bands on the wings. Some farmers told us that gall midge damage was around but we did not even see a single onion leaf in our walkabouts. We asked the farmers that accompanied us to show us any problems that they had in their fields. This caused us to take a few long walks but we found that for the most part there are few pests.

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Most remarkable was the absence of green leafhoppers which I had thought were in every rice field in Asia but apparently I am wrong. We saw a few brown planthoppers and I probably saw less than 20 total among the four villages visited. Therefore it was not surprising that there were few natural enemies seen compared to other locations. Most common natural enemies were dragonflies and damselflies and some assorted spiders but in very low densities. However in the few leaffolder damaged leaves not one had a live larvae and apparently had been eaten as no pupal cases were found to indicate that any matured.

4. Water management trials in bunded fieldsIn a few fields which could be bunded we tested using less water than the farmers’s practice which called for low water levels after transplanting or sowing to depths of 5 cm or less, and then raising them after maximum tillering to 8-15 cm to suppress weeds. In some fields there were trials that were not bunded so this biased the result. It is difficult to find soil to make bunds after the crop is established so that trials requiring bunding should be set out a planting time and if biasi occurs then the bunds need to be remade. We encouraged farmers to note down the water levels in the field at various times during the crop in the school books we supplied to some farmers who would pay Rs5 each.

The COs in Balar are giving cooperating farmers classroom instruction on improved agricultural practices. They have given two sessions in most of the Pilot villages so far. In the first session they discussed background information on fertilizers emphasizing the various kinds, rates, proper timing including on what 16-20-12 stands for. Each session lasts 2-3 hours in the classroom and 2-3 hours in the field. The second topic was pest identification and control. Farmers have the most problem in assessing pests and want to know the name of the best insecticide to use. These are the most frequent questions of RAEOs as well as our COs. Farmers just want to know what to buy. There is little learning from this approach so they need more background information which would be given in the farmer field school classes beginning next year. One reason we offered farmers notebooks so they can keep track of these details as well as calculate their profits.

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Rabi crops

Due to the favorable rains and large water savings Balar farmers may be able to grow up to 4,000 acres of rabi crops this year. Last year they grew 2,000 acres of rice and in 1998 they griw 2,000 acres of wheat. Yields were very poor however,only 6 or so bags per acre (range 3-12) (1 t/ha). The principal reason for the low yield was that they obtained their seed themselves by buying eating wheat in the local market.

Pisid

Rabi cropThe process of ordering seed will be left to the farmers through their village Farmer Committee made up of some of the older farmers. It is this committee that will meet with farmers to decide what rabi crops to grown. They will notify the Society of their needs for seed and inputs. They said they will not need credit as they will have just sold their rice so they have money.

Because the best location for rabi is in the lower lying strata, farmers will have to wait until January to plant as they have grown long maturing varieties in these locations. Even though it is a good rainfall year and the distribution has been ideal, they did not direct seed their rice crop until mid July and now the crop is only in the tiller elongation phase. If the crop had been transplanted they would be able to plant the rabi earlier. They said that next year they would select shorter maturing rices (but next year could have delayed rains). We cannot make decisions for next year based on this year’s rain they need to make decisions on the average rainfall.

In a town meeting in Pisid farmers will hold more meetings in order to come up with their plan of what crops to plant in the rabi. They are thinking about a third crop as well by growing til (sesame). For rabi they have tentitively selected

Groundnut,SunflowerMustardGramWheat

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The most profitable rabi crops are oilseeds such as sunflower followed by wheat and groundnut.

We discussed about the possibility of sowing the rabi crop by seed drill in the future. None of the farmers knew about such an implement. They are interested in trying the bullock pulled version as few have tractors. We told them we would arrange for one to be tested by them to see if it works well under their local conditions. If so then groups of farmers would be encouraged to purchase and share drills or for one to purchase and then allow others to rent drills for a fee. We told them that they could sow an acre of rabi crops in a day and that it would save one irrigation if the rice fields were still moist.

Kharve

In 1995-6 farmers had planted wheat and harvested a disappointing 8 bags/acre (1.3 t/ha). They also planted some sunflowers which did better and they extracted the oil for home use from a local expeller facility. They use the cake to feed their cattle or used as a fertilizer.

All the farmers therefore wanted to plant sunflower in the rabi and they estimate that 200 acres can be planted. They will have to organize watchmen to keep out stray cattle. They will plant in January which is not too late for sunflower as it can tolerate heat whereas wheat has problems of sterility from heat. They will ask the Society to order the seed.

They plan to sow sunflowers in rows and dig canals by spade to get the water to the field. They will each pay Rs91 as an irrigation fee just as they would for rice. They estimate 3-4 irrigations and will hill-up the plants by covering the base of the growing plants with soil. They have no farmer committee as in Hatod so they will ask the Society to order the seed and inputs for them. They also do not need credit. They expect a price of Rs15/kg which they say is good. As an oil seed it has a government support price. Farmers will again make field channels by hand spade

Semaria

As there is no irrigation and no hope as the water passes through an upstream village that does not let any go to them, thus they will not plant a rabi crop.

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Charod

Many farmers are interested in planting small plots of rabi crops for their home consumption. They chose to plant wheat and will sow before Dec 18 (a religious holiday) on about 100 acres. Irrigation water will come to them after passing throught Kut village upstream but those farmers normally take all of the water. They will make field canals by spade and will irrigated in small blocks starting uphill as most fields have 2-4% slope, thus the water will flow downhill and spread into the small blocks from shallow lateral furrows in a 3 x 3 m checkerboard throughout each field. They will check the flow along a lateral and let the water enter a small field channel upslope and when the 3 x 3 m block is irrigated they will block it off and open the next one down slope. Wheat will need 3-4 irrigations depending on maturity. They expect to obtain a yield of 7-8 quintal/ acre. Credit is not a problem because they would have just sold rice but if they need credit they can avail of the new lower interest of 6% per annum. They will store their wheat either in gunny sacks which has more threat from stored product pests or for longer periods they use the cavity in their walls of their homes that is sealed with mud. Every village has a mill that can mill rice or wheat.

Bilaspur Minor Irrigation SystemCOs : Mr. Duryodhan Megh (PIM)Mr. Kamlesh Kumar Nimalkar (Agr)

ScheduleTues Sep 11 Left Raipur at 9AM with Dr. Sahu, arrived 4PM in COs home in Bhopdipur. Interviewed farmers in Bopdipur with guidance from the WUA President Mr. Sitaram PatelOvernight in New Hotel Jankee.Wed Sep 12 Arrive in Bhopdipur and from 10:30AM visited fields there and in four other villages (Dareri, Khondtari, Khushwabeheri, Charbhata) during the day with Duryodhan Megh, Mr. Patel, and interviewed one farmer in Khondtari regarding his rabi cropOvernight in Hotel Sirwad

According to Mr. Joshi’s report of his and Philip’s trip 24-25 Aug, “the scheme has been designed to serve an area of 800 ha spread over in 8 villages. During the 2007 monsoon season, the irrigation tank has not filled up to its full

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capacity so far and the extent of available storage is 17 feet depth of water as against a full depth of 23.5 feet viz. nearly 65 percent of live storage. The irrigation sluice has been operated twice for releasing water for 5 days in one spell and two days in second spell during the month of July but aside from that it has been kept closed. Accordingly the target area for rabi cropping would be nearly 250 ha for less water consuming crops. Farmers of the area have been earlier doing paddy in rabi and if the practice is allowed to continue the irrigated areas may not go more than 100 ha. In this scheme there is one main canal of 3.8 km length and a minor of nearly 3.0 km length. The main canal covers 2/3 of areas where as 1/3 is covered by the minor canal. Two tail villages are the worst sufferers. The WUA with backup of farmers’ support should decide which area/villages to be given water in the rabi. It is certain, that it may not be possible to do irrigation in more than 1/3 of the available area. The choice is between supply of water to villages covered by main canal or to villages covered by area. Water conservation can be carried out by allowing for 24 hours for filling of the main canal to allow the water to reach the tail. No outlet to be opened for at least 24 hours from the time of opening or irrigation sluice. When the canal is full then farmers can take their water.”

As of our trip on Sep 11 there had been more rain thus the tank is now filled to 20 feet. Also as WRD has scheduled a repair to the main canal in the rabi season, there will only be irrigation in the minor canal. Farmers who are getting irrigation are only those at the extreme head end and they will grow rice taking most of the water. The other farmers will grow sunflower or wheat, not banking on irrigation water as many have their own borewells and those that do not will purchase water from those that do. The size of the fields of each farmer is small. In the kharif the system can irrigate 1000 acres but for the rabi this year only 250 acres will receive water.

Sunflower culture

Farmers growing sunflower either broadcast it or sow in rows. Row sowing means lower seeding rate of 2.5 kg/acre vs 3 kg. They have been growing sunflower here over the past 10 years and use hybrids. According to the WUA president Mr. Sitaram Patel, he prefers Jalamukwi but all their selections are hybrids purchased from private seed dealers rather than

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the Society. There is no need of credit as our farmer cooperators, who are mostly medium farmers, have funds. Rice will be harvested by mid-November and when the soil is damp, the farmers will plow 3-4 times. In row seeding they make furrows by a pick tool (kudali) by hand at 1 foot widths and sow 1-2 seeds every 1 foot distance. They then pass a plank (pata) over the field drawn by a pair of animals to cover the seeds and level the field. After crop emergence farmers will thin the rows to allow only one plant per hill to grow. At 15-20 days after crop emergence, they loosen the soil with the pick tool and hill up the rows (pushing soil against the base of plants from both sides of a row). This operation also serves as a weeding although densities are low as the previous crop was flooded rice. Alternating flooded rice and a dryland crop causes havoc on weeds as the different species are adapted to either wetland or dryland habitats but not both thus weeds are generally not a problem on crops grown after puddled rice. Farmers apply fertilizer twice, once in the seed furrow with 2 bags superphosphate (16% P) and 1 bag of 16-32-12/acre (7 kg N, 24 kg P/acre) (17 kg N and 58 kg P/ha). The second fertilizer application is a ring of urea (a spoonful) (1 bag/acre or 23 kg N/acre or 55 kg N/ha) is placed around each plant before flowering which is then covered with the pick tool which scrapes the soil in the interrows. There are some 4-5 irrigations and if they get the water from the tank they pay Rs100/acre. The method for irrigation is to make shallow furrowsthrough the field every 3 m and they make 3 x 3 plots bunded by soil which are irrigated individually until the water covers the area and then the next one and so on. This is small scale thus most work is done by hand. The farmers hire 7-8 laborers for furrow making, sowing, and 2 or so during irrigations.

Tall varieties are preferred as monkeys do not damage them as much. Monkeys come in groups of 10-20 to the field during the day and eat the stems. The farmers organize themselves so that there is a guard on duty all the time during the ripening stage over the last month of the 3-4 month duration crop. There is no need for insect pest or disease control. Birds are a problem particularly if the plantings are small where they can concentrate their damage, otherwise damage is tolerable. They expect a yield of 6-7 quintals/acre (1.4 t/ha). They consume most of it and if there is extra will sell to a middleman who pays them Rs18/kg who takes it in a truck to an expeller in the city and sells it for Rs20/kg.

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Thus they expect a gross profit of Rs25,200 per ha or Rs10,500/acre.

Wheat culture

Wheat is less preferred and the farmers get their seed from the last harvest and do not even know the name of the variety. Land preparation and crop culture are the same as in sunflower and all wheat is broadcast sown at a seeding rate of 40 kg/ac. They do not weed nor apply fungicides but may apply an insecticide (endosulfan) for stemborers to prevent whiteheads. All wheat is for home consumption and is grown on areas ¼ to ½ acre.

Kharif rice crop monitoring

July 11In Khushara Bahara village the most important problems seen on rice (which is in late stages of elongation) were yellow stemborer. The fields looked good in general with few weeds. We saw Cyperus iria and Echinochloa in the fields as the dominant weeds but in no field did it appear economically threatened. However if the farmers weeded late, early competition with weeds could have affected yield. We could see deadhearts in all fields and some clusters of them where the larvae hatched from an egg mass had spread out. Only one larva occurs per tiller thus the eggmass of 50-80 eggs gets dispersed around the oviposition site. Farmers again asked us what insecticide to use and they preferred chlorpyrifos. We were led to another field which was yellowing with the new leaves turning orange at the tips and then brown which is a nutrient deficiency. On such a field the farmer next season should put more FYM and then balanced inorganic NPK fertilizer. We told the farmer to apply zinc to one corner to see if that was the problem although the symptom was not exactly that of zinc, as varieties differ in nutrient deficiency symptoms that complicates diagnosis. We can do a soil analysis on this field in the dry season. Also present were scattered damaged leaves from leaffolder. There were obvious differences between fields in the color of the leaves with some that had used too much N and some too little, thus the need for the leaf color chart. We later discovered that this was the symptom of applying only N and not P and K thus balanced application of fertilizer should be emphasized.

July 12

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During the visits to rice fields of six of the villages we saw that the rice crops looked very good as they did in Balar. The situation was very similar between the two systems both in terms of general crop vigor as well as the production problems we saw. Most fields were in late elongation but before panicle initiation. Most fields had adequate water with fewer deeply ponded fields as was more common in Balar. Only a few fields were only damp without standing water. Crop mixtures were becoming evident with uneven maturation and height as evident in a number of fields. We only saw zinc deficiency in one small area but a few fields were deficient in P and K which were yellowish over the entire field with stunted plants with fewer tillers and the new fully developed leaves were yellowish with burned tips. Either the farmers did not apply fertilizer or that the bags were adulterated. Many fields looked like the farmer applied too much N as they were deep green. More kinds of weeds were seen in Bilaspur but fewer very weedy fields were noted. Again Cyperus iria dominated along with Ludwigia hyssopifolia and water hyacinth. 3-4 grasses were also noted including Echinochloa, Digitaria, and Eleusine. Wild rice (karga) was also evident in many fields but we did not see an extremely bad field as we did in Balar. But this weed is very important for the farmers to eliminate. Ladies were still weeding well after the optimal time. Diseases seen were very light and of no economic importance in any field. In fact leaves were remarkable clean of fungal spots of any kind. We saw some blast in scattered fields. Insect pests recorded were more remarkable in what was not present than what was. Stemborers (but much less than in Balar) as deadhearts in one field never exceeded 1%. We saw some adults resting in the field but no egg masses. Using a sweep net we sampled a number of fields. We also slapped the foliage at the base to dislodge planthoppers. The most common pests were grasshoppers especially Oxya but a wide assortment of species but none at economic levels. A surprisingly high number of greenhorned caterpillars were noted but again not of economic importance. We saw some pupae and farmers had no idea what these were. Some scattered leaffolder damaged leaves were seen but never any larvae when the folded leaves were opened. Leafhoppers and planthoppers were virtually nonexistent. No caseworms, whorl maggot, or hispa were seen. We did see a few rice bugs which I expect could become much more abundant as the crop heads out. It is a likely site for high rice bug densities due to favorable aestivation sites nearby in wooded areas. A number

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of different kinds of natural enemies were noted. There are always high densities of dragonflies and damselflies patroling the fields. A number of different kinds of spiders were seen but mostly those in the canopy rather than scurying around on the water. Due to the low population of hoppers numbers were low. No Cyrtorhinus was ever found nor aquatic microvelia or mesovelia predators.

Field trials

The COs Duryodan and Kamlesh set out trials in two fields in each of the eight villages. The treatments combined water management, dosage and timing of fertilizer, and IPM. We visited them in six of the villages and mostly they were unbunded which is not good for water management and fertilizer trials so this needs to be rectified in future trials. If the farmer is not willing to help bund the plots then they should select other cooperators. It only takes a a half hour to bund a plot, less time if more assist. If water management is to be examined then the bunds should be intact. We took tiller counts with the 0.5 m2 wire frame in order to express the tiller density per m2. Instruction was given on how to identify a productive tiller from a nonbearing tiller.

Beherakhar Minor Irrigation System

CO: Mr. Domendra Kumar SahuScheduleSep 14 Fri Arrived at noon. Visited fields in Beherakhar, Loharidih and farmers in PandariaOvernight in PWD Guesthouse SalebaraSep 15 Sat 9:30AM visited farmers in Usarwahi and fields in Usarwahi, Pandaria, and Bhimori2PM leave for Raipur

From Mr. Joshi’s report “the R&U proposal of the scheme consists of replacement of the damaged sluice gate and cement concrete lining in the filling reaches where heavy leakage is causing drainage difficulty to lands in Usarwahi village. The repair to sluice gate would be taken in the month of May when the water level in the tank is at the lowest. The cement concrete lining of canal in the head reach will have to be taken up first and would require closure of main canal and hence this year Rabi cropping in the complete irrigation area will not be possible. There is water available in the tank for 150 ha and they have had a

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meeting to decide that 80% will be planted to wheat and 20% to gram. Three villages will grow rabi which are Beherakhar with 20-25 acres, Bhimori with 25-30 acres, and Pandaria with 95-105 acre.”

Kharif rice crop

The general crop condition was the poorest of the sites in the Chhattisgarh Plain even though it was transplanted and not direct seeded dry as in Balar and Amakoni. Fields were commonly seen with many mixtures of varieties and off types and plant nutrients were often suboptimal. In addition at tail end villages there were many fields exhibiting drought stress even though this has been a good rainfall year which meant that the farmers should be able to grow a good rainfed crop but clearly this was not the case probably due to the light soils. It is also thought that soil lacked organic matter as well. The crops were mostly in the pre-panicle initiation stage but some fields were flowering while others were young. Some farmers are planting hybrids and in those fields which followed the COs recommended nutrient management, the crops looked good. Thus we are confident that nutrient management is lacking in most fields due to lack of knowledge.

Fields did not appear to be very weedy although the CO said that weeding was done late. The major weed was Cyperus iria with a smattering of grasses but few broadleaves. Some fields exhibited some symptoms of bacterial leaf blight but incidence was low. There was only one key insect pest and that was gall midge particularly in Bhimore and Pandaria villages. Some counts are as follows per 0.5 m2:Village Cultivar Tillers Galls % gall

midgeNo. hills

Tillers per hill

Bhimore 144 54 35% 29 5.0Pandaria MTU 1010 140 1 0.7% 36 3.8Pandaria Kultur 261 200 77% 41 6.4

The farmers helped in taking the counts and quickly learned the method. They wanted to know what insecticide to apply as they normally broadcast Phorate 10% granules at 1 kg product per acre. They said this does not work. Two factors will affect Phorate, the dosage and whether there is standing water in the field at > 4 cm depth. To achieve a dosage of 0.5 kg ai Phorate/ha which is the minimum effective dosage

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they would need to double their amount to 2 kg product per acre. In addition they need to have standing water in the field. The field with 77% gall midge was essentially dry with cracked soil. Thus the farmer would have to spray chlorpyrifos + cypermethrin that is the most available to farmers. It is believed that the permanently moist conditions in the villages which allows rice to ratoon and maintain gall midge is responsible for the problem. Fixing the leaking dam should go a long way in resolving not only the irrigation problem but the gall midge problem as well. Gall midge management should begin with farmers planting resistant varieties such as Mahamaya, MTU1001, Danteswari, and Chandrahasani as well as weekly monitoring. When galls begin to appear the farmers should take weekly counts with the 0.5 m2 wire frame as we did and when the incidence reaches 10-15% galls the farmer could apply insecticide.

We used a sweep net in fields from all the villages and what we found was remarkable in what pests were absent. The most numerous pest was greenhorned caterpillar and the farmers had no name for this defoliator. It along with other defoliators such as grasshoppers did very little damage, no where near to being economically important to reduce yield. Stemborer deadhearts could not be found but we saw some whiteheads. Planthoppers were absent. Only scattered leaffolders were seen. We saw some evidence of caseworm but the crop was getting too old for this to be prevalent. It was also too soon for rice bugs.

We visited all of the field trials which amounted to 6 fields which tested water and nutrient management, combined in the same fields. No bunds could be made as the crop was old when the trials were established. In the future bunds need to be put in after the crop is planted.

Rabi cropsSome farmers grow Lathyrus as a relay crop after rice and consume all at home to make their dhal. Soils in Beherakhar are matasi thus are light textured with less waterholding capacity and organic matter thus yields are low. Only in Pandaria have farmers had experience growing rabi crops, those in Bhimori and Usarwaha have never grown them and will depend on the project for recommended practices.

Wheat

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Farmers in Pandaria were interviewed as to their method of wheat cultivation. They had grown a crop some 10 years ago. They will sow in December after three plowings. The variety of choice is Navrada 4. Seed is broadcast at 40 kg/acre seeding rate and covered with the pata animal drawn implement. Before covering they apply the first application of fertilizer DAP at 1.5 bags/acre, the second application is urea at 25 kg/acre at 25-30 days after emergence timed with the first irrigation. They make canals with a spade and make a 3 x 4 m lattice of small canals in the field dividing the fields into blocks which they irrigate one block at a time moving from uphill to down hill. Two people can make the earthworks. There is no weeding as weeds are few, there are no diseases and the only insect pest is a stemborer which they do not spray. Birds are not pests. Stray cattle are kept out with a fence with watchmen taking turns. Yield is estimated to be 8-10 bags/acre (1.3 t/ha). 80% is sold expecting now a price of Rs8/kg and the rest consumed. They sell the balance as wheat is difficult to store. If they sold all of the crop they would earn Rs10,400/ha before expenses.

Chickpea

Again Pandaria farmers were interviewed. The same land preparation as for wheat is done and they broadcast sow but they do not know the variety (it is small seeded) nor the sowing rate. There are two irrigations, one at sowing and the other at 5-10% flowering. If irrigation occurs after flowering there will be few flowers so this calls for critical timing. There are no weeds but there is a wilt disease and a podborer. They do nothing for the wilt as when it comes the crop is essentially over. They apply endosulfan 35% EC spray for podborer and place two capsfull (30ml) of insecticide per 15 liter sprayerload for 1 acre (0.05 kg ai/ha) which is underdosed by a factor of 9 as the rate should be 0.4 kg ai/ha. They expect to harvest 2 quintals (200 kg) per acre (0.48 t/ha) and fetch Rs15-20/kg. They sell all of the crop and earn Rs7,200/ha before expenses.

Amakoni Minor Irrigation System

COs : Mr. Sanjay Kumar NimbalkarMr. Kamlesh Kumar Sahu

Schedule

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Tues Sep 18 8AM leave for Amakoni with Dr. Sahu and Mr. Nandi, arrive 10AM visited fields and trials in Kutari most of the day ending up in Khumaria to visit fields and meet farmersReturned to Mahasumund at 8PMWed Sep 19 9AM buy supplies in Mahasumund10AM go to Roda for farmer meeting and to visit fields1PM visit fields in Amakoni3PM visit WRD rest house4:30PM leave for Raipur

There is only enough water stored in the tank for the kharif rice crop; the only possibility for a rabi crop would be if there were good rains this month (Sept). There are two canals, one is damaged while the other only leaks. The leaky one can be used. Soils are light.

Kharif rice crop

The site is a mixture of irrigated and rainfed rice. There are some very good looking fields and there are some of the poorest fields we have seen yet. The soils are light and quite a number of fields are suffering from drought stress. On the other hand we saw fields that lacked drainage and the crop was suffering from stagnated water and algal blooms in fields at the end of the irrigation system.

Some fields are in flowering and milky stage while others are in maximum tillering. Late planted crops have suffered high infestations of caseworm giving a symptom called chitri banki where losses will be high.

A number of fields are planted too densely. We saw a wet seeded field where the farmer had chopped off 40% of the leaves in about half the field as the plants were lodging. We saw transplanted fields that were too densely planted as well.

Mixtures were commonly seen in crops and farmers make few attempts to purify their seed for next year. We saw our trial where the farmer was growing rice for seed. He was instructed to remove all off types and mixtures at flowering and just before harvest to purify the seed.

Regarding plant nutrition there are patches of zinc deficiency and the CO has become very popular as a result of

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making recommendations to use zinc sulfate which resulted in farmers becoming convinced that he knew what he was doing. As a result some 3-4 farmers on average come to his home each day to seek advice. They want him to go to their fields, some of which are very far away thus it takes much of his time. He does it however as we did as we want to encourage the respect of the farmers. The last field we visited in Khumari we walked about 1 km after the vehicle could go no farther. We went by foot crossing a stream in the moonlight and over barbed wire fences and brambles to ‘see’ that the farmer had zinc deficiency. I hope he said thank you.

We saw one field which exhibited the typical symptoms of nutrient deficiency that we have seen in other sites. New leaves were orange-yellow and turning brown at the tips. We interviewed the farmer regarding his fertilizer application and he said that he only put on N. thus the crop was suffering from P and K deficiency even though he used 4 cartloads of FYM. The local Society had not received enough DAP or ran out so all he had was N. These light soils are bound to be nutrient deficient in most elements and we will do extensive soil testing in the dry season. Compared to other sites there were fewer fields that overused N as leaf color was not dark green for the most part. Farmers will need a lot of assistance in getting the correct fertilizer rates and timing. We showed a farmer how to detect panicle initiation (PI) stage which is the time of the third fertilizer application. Almost all farmers time this application two weeks too late at booting. By this time the panicle has determined how many spikelets it will set. If the fertilizer was timed at PI there would be more spikelets and thus higher yield potential. We also demonstrated how to record the number of tillers per m2 which can foretell yield.

We saw more different kinds of weeds in the fields of Amakoni than in other sites. There were two prevalent sedges, Cyperus iria (pulanythah) and an unidentified other one they call chuka. There was Ludwigia plus another one with a purple flower Cyanotis axillaris and one with a blue flower Commelina sp.. Another was a hairy broadleaved called mokala. Water hyacinth was also seen in transplanted fields. Several Echinochloa species were noted as well. Farmers tend to weed too late as in other sites.

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We saw few diseases although on one field which was near to flowering we saw evidence that bacterial leaf blight was imminent. No blast was seen and all fields had very green unblemished leaves free of the common leaf spot diseases. What farmers call blast is zinc deficiency.

We saw very high incidence of gall midge which is a major pest in the area along with caseworm. There was some evidence of stemborer but in the several 0.5 m2 samples we took, there was hardly one deadheart. Gall midge however was another story. We took several 0.5m2 samples in fields showing high gall midge.

Village Variety Hills Gall midge

Tillers Total tillers

% galls 1/

Kutari Kultur 32 42 53 95 44%Amakoni Kultur 26 11 62 73 15%Roda Swarna 27 7 46 53 13%1/ Per 5 hills

The field with 44% gall midge damaged tillers surely will suffer yield loss whereas the crop may be able to tolerate the 13-15% levels, but as it also suffered from high caseworm defoliation, we recommended Phorate 10%G. The Amakoni farmer said he applied an insecticide ‘Bhradahan’ at 100 ml/acre without control. We do not know what this product is but even if it were formulated at 100% the dosage of 0.24 kg ai/ha is less than lethal 0.4 kg ai/ha. If there is standing water in the fields we recommended Phorate 10% granules to be applied at 2 1-kg bags per acre. The farmer thought that the caseworm moths flying when disturbed by our walking in the field were the adults of gall midge. This shows great ignorance on the part of farmers and need for training. Farmers stand a better chance of achieving adequate dosage with broadcasted granules than with a spray.

According to Dr. Sahu Mahamaya and MTU 1001 are resistant to gall midge and farmers that suffered high infestations should plant them next year. Mahamaya is an early rice but farmers want a longer maturing type such as MTU 1001. However we found a field of MTU 1001 with high infestation. On speaking with a key farmer who is our cooperator in the seed quality trials he said that he observed that other fields of MTU1001 as well as some of Mahamaya are free of gall midge. Thus we suspect that there are mixups in the varieties where what the farmer thought he was purchasing

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was MTU1001 but was actually something else. This is common as farmers often get varieties from their neighbors who may be mistaken on the actual name of the variety. There is little that a farmer can know just looking at its features. Dr. Sahu can recognize some of them by morphological characters but not all.

We saw three new insect pests in Roda, two minor and one potentially serious. In one of the last fields visited during the trip slapping the foliage of a crop (3 hills slapped three times very hard and opening up an area to see the insects that had fallen on the water surface) after maximum tillering produced some 20-30 young nymphs of brown planthopper. We had taken some sweeps in the area and noted that spiders were prevalent so it is possible that natural enemies can deal with this situation. The farmer and CO were instructed to monitor the field twice a week looking to note when the population reached the older nymphal stage. At that point if the density reaches > 1/tiller the farmer should spray BPMC (Bipin) at 0.4 kg ai/ha.

A farmer also complained of damage to his panicle which caused empty grains. Dr. Sahu thought it could be birds but more likely it was Conocephalus a long antennae katydid that is both a predator and feeds on rice grains. The reason the damage was high was that it came from the first panicles that emerged in the field thus the pest became concentrated as it prefers panicles to foliage. Once greater numbers emerge the damage will be diluted. The density of the katydid is not such that it could cause economic harm to the crop and its role as a predator counteracts the minimal damage it does to a few panicles.

In another problem brought forward was termite damage in the field. Roda is an irrigated area and fields are transplanted and to have termites eating off the roots under the soil is remarkable. It turns out that the farmers were correct and termites had eaten the roots of several hills of rice near to the bunds. Termites will die when flooded but the field was sandy and very light and well drained soil without standing water allowing the termites which inhabit the bunds to come into the field and forage on rice roots. Actually the infestation was minimal but farmers become alarmed when a few panicles show damage or a few hills of rice are killed as they fear that in a few days the whole field will be affected at serious loss. We recommended diazinon which is a soil insecticide to be applied just along the bunds at a

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high water volume to allow the insecticide to enter the soil profile. If it rained hard or the farmer could irrigate the field there would be no reason to spray.

Caseworm is also very common at the site and we saw a very high infestation in Khutari at the end of the irrigation system that was poorly drained. In such an area caseworms accumulate as they move field to field in their cases which float on the water surface. Thus the become highly abundant to the chagrin of the farmer we met where there were large patches of heavily defoliated plants and yield loss would be more than 50% in that field. On the other hand caseworm is one of the most sensitive insect pests to insecticides and can be controlled by almost any one chosen. We will recommend only the safest products such as neem or imidacloprid (Confidor) with low mammalian toxicity thus safe to the farmer who applies them.

Other pests noted were leaffolder but again as in other sites we saw many moths but little damage and no live larvae feeding. This is an indication of high populations of natural enemies. We took net sweeps of a number of fields and found spiders and damselflies and dragonflies as the dominant predators. We also saw corixids or waterboatmen in the paddy water so that if an insect fell onto the water surface they would be attacked immediately. We saw no planthoppers or leafhoppers. Only some stemborer damage including whiteheads was found but all at subeconomic levels. There was the usual greenhorned caterpillars but very few grasshoppers.

It is indicative that if farmers cannot control caseworm which is the easiest insect pest of rice to control, it can be concluded that they are not controlling any of the insect pests in their fields. The main reason is low dosage which is a consequence of low spray volumes.

Trials

There are more field trials here than in any one site we visited. Here is a summary of the trials:

Trial Kotari Roda Amakoni KumariDapog planting method

2 1

2 5 5

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seedlings per hillWater management

1 1

Seed quality

1 1

Zinc sulfate

1

Early weeding

4 4 2

Damage simulation

2

Total 9 6 5 10

All the trials seen looked to be well carried out. The water management trial was the only one that required bunding and all were bunded. While in Kumari we instituted a new trial to take advantage of a farmer who lop off rice leaves from his field. We had wanted to do this trial in all sites but no farmer would allow even 10% area to be cut from their leaves. In this field is approached 50%.

Aside from formal field trials where we mark out a 36m2 plot with stakes the CO is making recommendations to farmers and following up to see if they resulted in a good effect. This is another way of testing just by following up on fields where the CO has made recommendations and verified if farmers had followed them. This will be a good way of determining the inorganic fertilizer rates for NPK and will speed up technology verification.

Rabi crops

Rabi crops are only possible in the hamlet of Roda called Banjabara for about 100 acres. The farmers are still deciding what crop they will grow. One problem is that because farmers are near to the forest there are packs of monkeys, as many as 60-80 that invade fields and there is no way a watchman can keep them out as they can get aggressive. They will eat most rabi crops including groundnuts. Wheat is possible as they may disturb it less.

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