Zero Tillage Farming Boosts Wheat Crop,
Inspires More Farmers

Zero tillage farming is a technique for growing crops without disturbing the soil through tillage. Zero tillage not only reduces the cost of cultivation compared to tillage, it also reduces the soil erosion, crop duration and irrigation requirement and weed effects.

Prabhudayal Sutrakar is a 36-year-old middle-class farmer, living with his family of five members in Chachawali village of Niwari district. He owns three acres of land. A hardworking farmer, he wants to earn more, but his income was going down every year due to the low productivity rate of crops.

Under the tank rejuvenation programme supported by Marico, when the Development Alternatives team organised a meeting for farmers of Chachawali village, Prabhudayal was also in attendance.

The meeting aimed to tell farmers about the no-tillage farming technique. Among all the farmers, Prabhudayal was chosen by everyone’s consent to practise zero-tillage on his land. He was very curious to learn about this method and at the same time hoping that it might give him profitable returns. He was given 20 kg of hybrid variety of wheat seeds, i.e., GW 323 under the programme free of cost.

Method of sowing and irrigation
The experts from the DA team went to his land and trained him in the method. First, pits were dug at equal distance and then vermicompost, which is a natural fertilizer, was added to the pits. The wheat seeds of hybrid variety were placed in each pit. Prabhudayal was told by the team that instead of chemical fertilizers such as DAP and urea, use Amrit-Jal, a liquid organic fertilizer that enriches the nutrient level of soil for organic farming. It would also help in protecting crops from weeds and insects. The irrigation requirement would be the same as before. He was told that extra care and precautions should be taken.

Benefits from no-till farming
By the conventional method of growing wheat, Prabhudayal used to get three or four spikelets from one seed and production was 10 quintals of wheat on one acre of land. On using the no-tillage method and the hybrid variety of wheat seed, there were 32-35 spikelets from one seed. The production rate was tremendous as 11 quintals of wheat was produced on just half an acre of land.

Prabhudayal was thankful to the DA team for introducing him to this concept of farming. Moreover, seeing his success, 20-25 farmers of the village showed readiness to sow wheat employing the no-tillage method.■

Rishabh Singh
rsingh@devalt.org