To manage stubble, Jalandhar wheat growers opt for mulching

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, January 1

Scores of Punjab farmers have stopped burning the paddy stubble and adopted a technique called mulching, in which the stubble is used in fields and for sowing wheat.

Experts say the technique doesn’t require costly machines and the input cost per acre is also quite less. Gyan Singh of Jairampur village used to burn paddy before 2017 but for the past three years, he hasn’t indulged in the practice because he found a new way of using the stubble in the field itself.

The technique involved

When the paddy is harvested, the stubble is spread with the help of a reaper that prepares the field for wheat cultivation. Then wheat seeds along with fertilisers are sown and the fields are irrigated. Many farmers of Jairampur village in Kapurthala and Nusi village of Jalandhar, apart from those in other districts, are setting an example using the technique

There are many farmers of Jairampur village in Kapurthala and Nusi village of Jalandhar apart from other districts, who are setting an example. Gyan Singh grows wheat on his 35 acres.

In the first year, he had sown wheat using this technique on only one acre and when he found the results to be satisfactory, he shifted entirely to mulching.

“FIRs were being lodged against farmers for burning paddy residue, this is what prompted me to think of some other technique that will resolve the stubble problem and won’t cause any pollution,” Gyan Singh added.

Kabal Singh of the same village said he had also started sowing wheat using the same technique three years ago and was seeing good results.

Gurpreet Singh Dabrikhana, a farm expert, said the cost of production was lower as compared to other techniques. He claimed that at present, wheat was sown on more than 1 lakh acres in Punjab using this technique.

“The yield of the crop using this technique is better. Also, 90 per cent of weed problem also gets resolved because of mulching,” he said. “In the first year when Gyan Singh grew wheat using the technique, 23 quintals per acre were harvested as compared to 16 quintals per acre using other techniques,” Dabrikhana said.

Naresh Gulati, Agriculture Officer, Jalandhar, agreed that the technique was giving good results. “This requires low input cost, so small farmers must adopt such techniques, which will help them a lot,” he said.

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