Instructional Farm

 

 

Ahmednagar is the drought prone district of which hardly 26.6 per cent area is irrigated. Around 80 per cent land is medium to light type of soil.  Due to adverse situation, there is more diversification of the agriculture. Soil and water conservation and efficient use of water are the major tasks for sustaining crop productivity in the district.   KVK farm is also having two basic constraints i.e. medium to light soil with poor ground water availability

Therefore, KVK has planed to develop the farm, which can represent the agriculture scenario of the district.  Similarly farmers can easily adopt the technology demonstrated at the instructional farm. Keeping with this vision, KVK has implemented following mission

·        Conservation and efficient use of water for irrigation

·        Development of sustainable and profitable farming system

·        Field trials and demonstration of innovative technologies on location specific problems for faster adoption and dissemination

Development of Instructional Farm

KVK has 24.0 ha of land for the instructional purposes which represents the district situation.  Soil of the farm is mainly divided in three type i.e. very light soil (8 ha), light soil (10 ha), and medium soil (6 ha.).  The land comes under rainfed area where there was no irrigation source. The land was undulating and uncultivable since long time.  For farm development, first priority was given to develop the water resources as well as development of land for cultivation.

During the initial years, one well and one tube well was dug. This water was insufficient for irrigation. Therefore the irrigation scheme from Pravara River canal was started in the year 2000. The water availability on the farm was dependent on the canal rotation and often affects the crop yield.   The water shortage between the canal rotations was an important issue that affected crop yields. Therefore, the water storage tank was constructed to store the canal water. The polyethylene lined water tank with 170 lakh lit capacity was constructed on 0.60 ha land during the year 2005.  Similarly rainwater harvesting model was developed in 2007 to collect the runoff water from 100 acres land.   Separate water storage tank of 40 lakh lit was constructed in which fish farming concept is introduced.  Due to availability of the water, all the area has now come under diverse crops suitable for irrigated and rain fed situation of the district.  Similarly the entire farm has been brought under micro irrigation i.e drip and sprinkler irrigation system.

 

Irrigation Management

Micro irrigation system has been adopted for all the crops. It has helped in efficient use of water apart from improving soil properties and increasing the crop productivity. Water is limited resource available with farmers. Hence the field demonstrations  of  micro irrigation system at KVK farm has helped for its adoption and dissemination among the farming community.

Drip irrigation system is adopted for all horticulture crops.  Similarly cash crops like sugarcane and cotton are grown on also drip irrigation.  For seasonal crops like soybean, wheat, gram etc, sprinkler irrigation is being used.  This has helped to improve the water use efficiency.  It has further helped to save the labors charges for maintaining the soil health.  The integrated model of rain water harvesting and farm pond with micro irrigation has helped to convince the farmers.  The adoption of this concept is increasing among the farmers.

Technology Assessment, Refinement and Demonstration at Farm

Location specific and problem oriented trials conducted on KVK farm and successful result replicating on farmers field for adoption and dissemination of technologies

 

Crop Cafeteria

Different improved varieties of wheat, soybean, bengal gram and fodder crop are being demonstrated in the cafeteria at KVK farm so that farmers are able to see the performance of all varieties and choose the most suitable for their situation based on the available resources with them. Besides the crop variety in the crop cafeteria, different varieties of fruit crops, sugarcane and cotton were also planted to assess the performance as well as to produce seeds and seedlings.

 

Farm Mechanization

Different new implements are also procured for demonstration purposes

·        Single wheel hoe for hoeing in seasonal crop to save money and time

The demonstration of these implements has helped to increases the adoption among the farmers.

 Outcome

Ø      Production of seed and seedlings benefiting 2553 farmers

Ø      15 farm pond of 50 lakh, 1.5 crore liter water capacity were constructed by farmers on their farm for efficient irrigation management

Ø      52 broiler and layer poultry units started by rural youth in 5 blocks with an average income of Rs. 3000-5000/month

Ø      Dense planting in mango and guava was adopted on 45 ha area 

Ø      Custom hiring services of farm implement, increases adoption of implements like rotavator, reversible plough among the farming community 

Ø      Instructional farm is treated as Organic Farming learning center for farmers

Ø      Technologies of different planting method of sugarcane were disseminated  and spread on more than 500- 600 ha area

Ø      Micro irrigation technology for sugarcane, cotton and field crops was spread on large area

Ø      25 azolla unit were started by dairy entrepreneur

Transformation

Azolla production

Azolla, a blue green algae is being used as protein rich feed for milch cows for improving milk fat percent and minimizing the cost on concentrate feed.  KVK is a pioneer to introduce azolla technology in Ahmedngar district. KVK has started instructional unit at KVK and also has established production units at dairy entrepreneurs and conducted trials on milking cows. It has benefited both the dairy entrepreneurs as well as dairy societies. Now cooperative as well as private dairy societies have started promoting this technology among their milk producers. Some dairy societies have also facilitated the dairy entrepreneurs to start azolla production units by proving some inputs like culture and polythene paper.

 

Trash mulching in sugarcane Trash mulching in ratoon sugarcane was demonstrated first time in 1996-97 by KVK at instructional farm as well as farmers’ fields in order to improve soil health, save irrigation water, minimize the cost of cultivation and increase the cane yield. Sugarcane is a main cash crop of the district. Soil salinity, water scarcity and low yield are major problems. Continuous field demonstrations of the technology and its benefit have resulted in change in the attitude of sugar factories. Sugar factories have accepted this technology and have started large scale dissemination though their agriculture staffs on wider area. Pravara co operative sugar factory which is the first co-operative sugar factory in India, has also made a policy change and declared 50 Rs/ton extra rate for sugarcane growers, who use trash mulching technology in ratoon crop. Now 65-70 percent farmers have started adopting trash mulching technology in ratoon crop.

Pruning technology in drumstick

Concept of drumstick cultivation in field as a commercial crop was introduced by KVK. The fruiting season in drumstick is once in a year, but KVK has introduced pruning technique for the first time in drumstick, which has given the benefit of one additional crop season per year. Training, demonstrations, mass media have further helped in wider dissemination of this technique. Now more than 300-400 farmers on an area of 150-160 have adopted this technique in 21 districts of Maharashtra.

Farm pond

Ahmednagar is a drought prone district, hence storage of available water and its efficient use for irrigation management is the prime need for sustaining agriculture yields. KVK has constructed a farm pond and used micro irrigation system for efficient use of available water. This technology has disseminated through farmers clubs. Two farmers club namely Swaminathan Farmers club, Astagaon and Adesh Farmers Club, Jawale Kadlag has adopted farm pond concept.

Total 15 farm ponds of capacity 50 lakh –1.5 crore liter water capacities have been constructed by members of the farmers clubs.  State agriculture Department has also assisted the farmers club under NHM scheme for farm pond construction.