16

May

Kharif Season Blog #1 - Cultivating Rice

Having the largest percentage of the agricultural area under rice cultivation, India is among the largest producers of this staple crop worldwide. Since rice is mainly grown in areas receiving heavy annual rainfall, it's definitely one of India's major crops, especially in Kharif season. The following Blog will inform you about crop varieties of rice, field preparations as well as best practices for disease prevention and yield optimization.

Preparing a Cropping Calendar

From the fallow period and field preparation, crop establishment and maintenance, to harvest and storage of rice, a cropping calendar allows you to schedule the whole cultivation cycle for ensuring higher yields. Basically it's effortless, you can do it right at your fingertips with the Plantix App. Simply set up your sowing date and plot size, and the Plantix Advisory feature will schedule each step and provide you with regular, timely notifications to get the most out of the season. In addition, with this function you can easily calculate your fertilizer requirements for the entire season, Plantix also tells you the correct mode of application, as well as its duration.

Varieties

The selection of the best growing variety for any situation should be chosen depending on soil conditions, water availability and the crops which follow in the cropping sequence. In general, select relatively short-lived varieties for high and midlands from which water can be drained during harvesting. In this way you can grow a second crop on rain-rich land with residual moisture. On irrigated land, it will also provide sufficient time for soil preparation for wheat or potatoes, which enables you to grow three crops in a sequence.

A variety of high yielding and improved paddy varieties in different maturity groups, grain quality, and pest resistance are available. Farmers in your area, experts and scientists all pool their knowledge in the Plantix Community and can help you to select and purchase the most suitable variety for your agricultural conditions. Don't hesitate to contact them for more information.

Field Preparations

After harvesting the previous crop, cultivate the land preferably with a mould plough. Summer ploughing should be carried out after the summer rains:

  • This reduces the weed population and thus pests and diseases too
  • It makes soil nutrients more readily available to the crop
  • And it helps in fixation of atmospheric nitrogen

Leveling and final field preparations should be done with pre-monsoon showers for sowing. Use the stale seedbed method by destroying the first batch of rising weeds 5-7 days after a pre-monsoon rain shower by final ploughing. Add an appropriate amount of compost or FYM to your field to improve soil structure and water storage capacity - 5 to 6 tonnes per acre should be sufficient.

In the Advisory section of the Plantix app, you will find useful step-by-step information on all yield boosting measures that should be undertaken before sowing. There you’ll also find specifics about nursery raising and weed control in the nursery.

Prevention of Pests & Diseases

The best control for pests and disease problems is prevention. So, better safe than sorry - limit pest and disease damage by:

  • practicing proper hygiene on equipment and fields between the seasons.
  • using clean seeds and resistant varieties.
  • planting at the same time as other farmers in your surrounding area.
  • proper usage of fertiliser.
  • monitoring your crops regularly with the Plantix Health Check feature.
  • encouraging natural enemies of pests.
  • avoiding the use of a pesticide within 40 days of planting.
  • storing cereals correctly.

There are several steps that all rice farmers must take to establish a crop. Make sure to have everything under control, download the Plantix app for free and benefit from our next century farming tool.