agriculture tips

In our Agriculture for Everybody  blog series, we will be covering an important design aspect by which rain water is harvested as part of the design. Water as a resource is becoming scarce and every farmer needs to ensure that water is saved for future use. We can easily incorporate Rain Water Harvesting in this design without much difficulty. Each of the Trees Space can be utilized for this purpose.  We need to dig  trenches of size 2 Ft Width and 1.5 Ft Depth and the Length is the entire length of the Trees Space.  This method of farming is called Trench Farming.  Please note that the Trees are grown in these trenches only. The advantage of this method of Rain Water Harvesting is that we do not have to sacrifice/allocate land for the purpose of Rain Water Harvesting separately. It helps reduce soil erosion due to rains/water run-off. Improves the ground water levels. During the non rainy season, we can use the trenches for putting the bro...

In our Agriculture for Everybody  blog series, we will cover the various permutations and combinations of Long Term Crops (mainly Trees) & Medium Term Crops (again mainly Trees) and their placement at a basic design level. So far, we have covered where the Trees will occupy the spaces in the field.  But now, we will see the different options within the Trees Space as well. I have provided 6 options above and we will discuss them in detail below.  The Options that marked with * can be applied for Long Term Crops & Medium Term Crops as well. Option 1 This option is a very generic option and no specific crops have been mentioned.  The Long Term Crops specifically means that we should only plant crops that are long term in nature and similarly Medium Term Crops specifically means that we should only plant crops that are medium term in nature. The only requirement in this option is that we have to alternate between Long Term Crops & Short Term Crops in ...

In our Agriculture for Everybody  blog series, we will address some of the queries we have raised in our previous blog namely Farm Design - An Overview. We will focus mainly on the spacing for Trees as well as on the spacing for Open Spaces.  Also, we will discuss on the Generic v/s Standard (Specific) Spacing. First, we will discuss on the options in the spacing of trees.  Either we can go for Standard (Specific) Spacing or Generic Spacing. The Generic Spacing between Plant-to-Plant is 10 ft. If we go for Standard (Specific) spacing, then the individual plant will dictate the spacing.  For eg., Coconut needs a standard spacing of 25 ft. Secondly, regarding the Open Spaces, it is advised to have 12 ft between the rows of the plants.  Again, the Open Spaces can be 24 ft, 36 ft, 48 ft etc (can be any number of ft and not necessarily multiples of 12) and this depends on the individual needs of the farmer and the plant they grow as well. We have ...

In our Agriculture for Everybody  blog series, I am presenting the overall farm design and will keep explaining things in detail as we go along. We will cover the Fence Design, Crops Design, Roads Design in detail by using this picture as a base and later we will cover Livestock Sheds & Living Quarters, if possible. By using the design, we will know the following:- How much land will be utilized for fencing? (Applicable only for Natural/Live/Bio Fencing model) What type of plants are grown in which part of the fencing area? (Very useful for tracking as it can be utilized for our own manures & pesticides) How much area of roads needs to be provided for? What is the size of each road and what type of vehicles can be allowed to travel in that road without interfering/damaging the crops? What type of plant is grown in which part of the land? Design One (Ver1.0) ???????   The picture given above is in Square Shape and should be considered as an illustration o...

In our Agriculture for Everybody  blog series, we will see when Crops Design makes sense and when it does not make sense.  We will be using a very simple example for showcasing when Crops Design makes sense. When is Crops Design not necessary? The Crops Design will not be necessary if you go for a mono-crop for the entire farm and hence there is no design requirement (for crops) at all. When is Crops Design necessary? The Crops Design is necessary if you go for a diversified crop activity. Lets take 2 Farms (hypothetical example) each having 10 acres and the crops grown are Teak, Mango, Coconut & Vegetables.  Both the farms has 2.5 acres allocated to the individual crops. Please note that the author does not recommend monoculture design and has taken the example for the sake of simplicity. The 1st Farm has the following design and the crops placement in it are given below. First 2.5 Acres - Teak (followed by) Next 2.5 Acres - Mango (followed b...

In our Agriculture for Everybody  blog series, we will try to understand the basic requirements of the Farm Design and how to approach the detailed design using the basic requirements. Keeping it very simple, we need to understand the basic requirements of the Farm in the first place and jot them down.  Please note that it is not required that each and every basic requirements needs to be made available immediately.  What we are trying to achieve is to provide the spacing in terms of land parcel and the placing of the requirement in the right place in the farm keeping in mind our overall design. Please note that all the requirements mentioned below may or may not be required for each and every farm except for the Crops. Crops Fences Roads LiveStock Living Quarters Once we have decided on the basic requirements, we can create a detailed design using the basic information as the basis. The following detailed questionnaire will help us to finetune the detailed...