Field visit to JJ Organic Farm

KVK team comprising the all the specialist visited the JJ Farm in Kattalankulam Village to provide corrective advisory services. The farm is spread around 50 acres in the dry area which were established with the theme of Integrated Farming. The farm was buildup with Orchards, Agro forestry, waste decomposing unit, apiary, cattle and poultry units. Mr. Jeyarayan is adopting organic practices in his farm. The inputs were used for his farm like Panchakavya, vermi wash and Fish hydrolysate was produced at the farm itself. During the visit, advisory services and corrective measures were provided by the scientists of KVK to improve the productivity of the farm.

First the Banana field was visited which is spread under 2 acres and most of plants at its harvesting stage. The farmer was advised to reduce the number of additional suckers to avoid competition and to increase the bunch size. His waste decomposing unit was adopting expensive methods in heap composting. Various technical suggestions were provided to the heap composting to reduce the cost involved in the composting.

Then the scientists visited fruit orchards and apiary unit. Here the hives were spoiled by wax moth. Incidents of wax moth menace and its control measures were explained to the farmer to revive the unit. The farm worked also trained in safe handling of the hives. In case of Guava orchard, the trees were not pruned since its planting. To meet the growing demand to lucknow 49 variety seedling in the market, production of quality sapling through air layering was suggested. We assured to provide the technical assistance in producing saplings.

Later the team moved to the cattle unit which has 10 cows and 20 goats which were grown by semi intensive method. Proper ratio in feed preparation were suggested to the unit and advised to maintain the balance in the feed ratio. The waste from these units were collected through subsurface pipeline and disposed to prepare organic inputs. Poultry unit were having less number of birds. Here, the farmer advised not to buy more birds but upscale the unit using these birds. Here, we advised to install the net around the run area of this unit to avoid preying of young chicks.  

In case of vermi composting unit, the farm has the capacity to produce more quantity. We suggested to commercialize the unit to meet the growing demand of earthworms among farmers. In azolla unit, weeds were suppressing the growth. The farmer advised to rejuvenate the unit to control the weed growth to increase the quantity of azolla production.

 Though the farmer follows subsistence farming style, the farm has the capacity of being a commercial unit. The team advised him to adopt the recommended measures to upscale the productivity of the farm.