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Time of India
3 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
IAS turned farmer aims to check groundwater depletion
Ludhiana: Amid growing concerns about the fast depleting groundwater due to paddy cultivation in Punjab, IAS officer-turned-farmer Kahan Singh Pannu has come up with a solution that uses only 20%-25% of water for farming instead. He conducted a workshop on the technique, called seeding of rice on beds (SRB), at Ajeetval village here recently. He said it not only requires much less water, but also comparatively less quantities of weedicides and pesticides. Pannu and his team are now creating awareness about the SRB technique in villages across the state to potentially curtail the groundwater crisis that looms large. In fact, Pannu currently heads a programme for regenerative agriculture at RoundGlass Foundation. Speaking to TOI, Pannu said, "The SRB technique is an improvement of the DSR technique. Bed seeding is a well-established practice in the cultivation of maize, potatoes and vegetables. Since it helps save a lot of water, I thought of trying it for paddy as well, but there was no existing machine for it. So I got a prototype made, experimented with it for about six months, and came up with a few iterations in collaboration with National Agro Industries for making seed rice beds. " Last kharif season, he said, he used two such machines and it yielded great results in terms of saving water. Besides, it gave the same yield while using much less weedicides and pesticides. He has 12 such machines this year as they are trying to cover at least 100 places in the state. Explaining the technique, he said 18-22 inch beds can be made with the machine, with grooves as wide as one foot. Two rows of seeds, 7 to 8 inches apart, get sown in the bed with plant-to-plant distance of about 4 to 6 inches. This technique also saves labour costs as the machine sows the seeds directly. Speaking about paddy cultivation, he said currently there is no alternative to paddy. Even though paddy is not a crop that is agro-economically conducive to Punjab, but the whole ecosystem depends on wheat-paddy with assured markets and MSP and farmers have experience of growing it. So the focus had to be on how to save water, as the groundwater in Punjab is depleting. At the current pace, it won't last till 2039, as per the Central Groundwater Board statistics, he warned. Short duration varieties were developed by PAU and DSR, but more was required. Currenly, 17 mn acre ft gets recharged but in Punjab 28 mn acre ft groundwater is being withdrawn. In the traditional method, the production of a kg of rice requires 4000 litres of water. In Punjab, paddy is grown on more than 85 lakh acres which means more than 15 lakh tubewells run from June to Sept, so one can imagine the magnitude of groundwater being withdrawn, he said.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Science
- Time of India
Beyond DSR, farmers adopt bed-sowing rice for water saving
CHANDIGARH: For the upcoming paddy season, while the state government is promoting Direct Seeding of Rice (DSR), some farmers are, for the second consecutive season, opting for a different method: Seeding of Rice on Beds (SRB), a variant which is also believed to be effective in saving underground water. Being propagated by former bureaucrat Kahan Singh Pannu, who served as secretary, agriculture and is an alumnus of the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), the SRB technique for paddy cultivation involves direct sowing of paddy seeds on raised beds of 18-22 inch width in two rows, and water is applied in furrows of 12 inch width. Farmers in some parts of the state adopted this method last season, and even more are exploring it this time. "Punjab faces an environmental disaster with its rapidly depleting groundwater table," Pannu said, adding, "Experts predict the state's groundwater will be completely gone up to 1,000 feet deep in the next 14 years. The main cause of this crisis is the cultivation of water-guzzling paddy during summer, a practice that has the potential to annihilate the Punjab civilization in the foreseeable future." GS Dhillon, a farmer from Dhanansu village in Ludhiana, said, "With seed companies now introducing paddy varieties that work well with weedicides and herbicides, SRB is emerging as a viable option. We faced some initial challenges last time, but we hope to use that experience to achieve a better yield this season. I like to experiment on my farm and the biggest advantage of this method is that it helps save underground water. " With the Seeding of Rice on Beds (SRB) method, paddy plants meet their water needs primarily through moisture, rather than relying on standing water. Seeds are sown with a row-to-row spacing of 10-12 inches, allowing plants ample natural air, moisture, light, and space to reach their full genetic potential. This method significantly reduces water consumption, requiring only about 25% of the water used in traditional paddy cultivation. Traditional paddy cultivation, which involves creating artificial ponds of water during hot summer months when evapotranspiration is highest, requires approximately 5,000 litres of water to produce just one kilogram of rice. Pannu added that since rice is sown and grown on beds without requiring standing water, there's no emission of dangerous methane greenhouse gas into the environment. This method also keeps soil pores open, aiding in better rainwater recharging and fostering superior conditions for beneficial microbes in the root zone, thus promoting natural environmental activity. Furthermore, plants absorb less water, making them sturdier and less succulent, and consequently, more resistant to insect, pest, and pathogen attacks, he said.
