Asia’s useful trees and plants
K.L. Noatay
SAL is a tall handsome tree. It grows to large dimensions in the Indo-Gangetic plains and the Shivaliks where right kind of soil and moisture conditions are available, in addition to favourable environment.

Water pricing — magic wand for farming in Punjab
G.S. Dhillon
THE wheat-paddy rotation ushered in an era of plenty in terms of foodgrain production in Punjab and was considered to be a boon as it brought about the Green Revolution some three decades ago. 

Fruits of urban agriculture
Radhakrishna Rao
URBAN farming has for many years now remained an inseparable part of many cities around the world. But in recent years, the adverse impact of urban agriculture on health and environment has made the civic authorities to take a fresh look at urban farming and its implications. 

Farm operations for June

Asia’s useful trees and plants
K.L. Noatay

SAL is a tall handsome tree. It grows to large dimensions in the Indo-Gangetic plains and the Shivaliks where right kind of soil and moisture conditions are available, in addition to favourable environment. Its scientific name is shorea robusta and the family is dipterocarpaceae. In regional languages and dialects it is called salwa, sakhu, sakher, shal, kandar, sakwa, etc. It tends to grow in gregarious stands in a well-drained, moist, sandy loam soil. It is generally a moderate to slow growing species and can attain a height of about 30 to 35 metres and a girth of about 2 to 2.5 metres in nearly 100 years under favourable conditions. Natural habitat of sal starts from Burma in the East, crosses over to Assam, Bengal, Nepal, the Deccon Plateau, Sri Lanka, etc. and goes up to the foothills of the Shivaliks on the left bank of the Yamuna. A few trees of sal are, however, seen growing as far in the West as the Shivbari temple in Una district of Himachal Pradesh. Altitude-wise sal grows well in low height plains to foothills viz. Shivaliks from 200 to 1200 metres above mean sea level. However, its crops growing in Nepal and Singhbhum district of Bihar, especially the Saranda area, are considered to be of the best variety.

The bole of sal tree is erect and cylindrical. The crown tends to be linear and sharp topped in young trees and roundish to flat in olders ones. The bark of the young tree is smooth with a few long deep and vertical furrows. Its thickness is 2 to 5 cm. and colour dark brown. Its texture is rough with peculiar longitudinal furrows in mature trees.

Sal tree is seldom completely leafless. In dry regions, however, it tends to shed practically all leaves for a short period from February to April. Fresh leaves appear during April to May depending upon the local climate. These are ovate-oblong in shape and 10 to 25 cm x 5 to 15 cm in size. The texture is tough and coriaceous with a typical shine on upper surface when fully mature.

The sal flowers, whitish in colour, appear during April-May. These come out in axillary racemos panicles covered with white pubescence. The fruit during May-June and the seeds ripen from June to July. These tend to germinate even while on the tree and accordingly begin to fall soon after appearance.

The sap wood in sal is of small thickness. It is whitish in colour and less durable. Heatwood is pale when freshly cut and tends to grow dark brown on exposure. It is coarse grained, hard and of fibrous structure. Annual rings are visible in young trees or on freshtly cut wood. Its pores are of moderate size. These are filled with a kind of resin which makes the wood naturally durable.

The sal wood is considered to be one of the three naturally lasting timbers of the Asian subcontinent — the other two being teak and deodar. It weighs nearly 25 to 30 kg to a cubic foot. It is difficult to plane and more so to drive a nail in to it. It is accordingly considered most suitable for railway sleepers, piles, beams and other load bearing parts of bridge structures, wheels and bodies of carts and other similar load carriers, including motor trucks, super structure of house tops, etc. In fact sal wood is most suitable for all such applications where strength and elasticity are foremost requirements, and where planing and polishing are not so very essential.

The sal wood being so much sought after for construction purposes, its demand is much more than the available supply. It fetches nearly Rs 1000 per cubic foot. As such the states having good sal forests earn a lot of revenue.

In addition, a sal tree when tapped, yields white opaline resin which is burnt as incense in Hindu homes during religious ceremonies. It is also used for caucking boats and ships. A kind of oil is also obtained from sal fruit which is used for burning in earthern lamps. Some indiscreet businessmen tend to even use it for adulterating ghee. Further, during famine poor people grind the fruit into flour and eat it to ward off starvation.

The sal tree is also an object of worship among Buddhists and Hindus in India and the adjoining countries. The legend has it that the famous Lumbini tract where Lord Buddha had sat for meditation and acquired salvation constituted a thick forest of sal trees. It is, therefore, no wonder that some believers treat sal tree as a god.

The healthy forests of sal in their original habitat like Singhbhum regenerate on their own. In less favourable areas these need the management’s continuous assistance for regeneration. Among the areas presenting difficulty in regeneration are the forests in and around Golatappar in Dehra Dun division of Uttranchal. Here the young saplings of sal keep dying year after year due to heavy accumulation of pool frost effecting the Doon valley during water. This and other possible causes and remedies for the difficulty of sal regeneration are an important subject of research at the hands of scholars of forestry at the National Institute of Forestry and Environment, Dehra Dun. They are also conducting studies into the insects and bacteria afflicting the healthy growth of sal trees in certain unfavourable locations.

In a nutshell the management and maintenance of sal forests is a highly technical subject and growing these trees individually is not feasible or practical.

Water pricing — magic wand for farming in Punjab
G.S. Dhillon

THE wheat-paddy rotation ushered in an era of plenty in terms of foodgrain production in Punjab and was considered to be a boon as it brought about the Green Revolution some three decades ago. This year the foodgrain production has crossed the limit of 200 lakh tonnes in Punjab which has created a big headache for the administration in terms of making arrangements for purchase, prompt payments and adequate storage of the purchased foodgrain. The arrival of another 80 to 85 lakhs of paddy in the market soon will compound the problem for the state administration.

Under these circumstances, the administration wishes that some magic wand become available to break the spell of the wheat-paddy nexus.

Mr Jagjit Singh Ghungrana, Chairman of the PAIC, while speaking at a seminar in Chandigarh on May 18 observed that the government needed to take several initiatives both at the central as well as the state level to enable Punjab to come out of the wheat-paddy cycle syndrome. According to him, the food processing industry provides an alternative, though it is costly and requires major investment initially.

The earlier alternatives of breaking the nexus by asking the farmers to take up cultivation of sunflower and maize have not been successful and reasons for this may be worth discussion in this write-up but we would see what opportunities are offered by the food processing mode for the survival of the small farmers of Punjab.

The government plans to allow 100 per cent FDI for the food processing units and the Punjab Government plans to set up several food parks in the state to help farmers go in for cultivating vegetables which would be processed at these food parks and be exported and sent to the large population centres where there is a keen demand for this stuff.

However, experts have cautioned the farmers that with the present-day level of production of vegetables and their quality, there is little chance of success and the farmers must take to the improved measures of vegetable cultivation, including giving up the present-day mode of irrigation through flooding. They were asked to follow the practices successfully followed by Chinese farmers such as the tunnel mode of cultivation and polythene mulching of the fields, in addition to the improved modes of irrigation such as drip or sprinkler modes which meet the water demand of the plants grown.

The question which needs to be answered here is that "will it be possible for the farmers to adopt the new mode and leave the present-day mode of flooding when the government provides free water for irrigation to the farmers by making available free electricity for tubewells and not charging for the canal water supplied.

The answer would depend upon the fact whether a level field is made available for the new mode of irrigation.

Earlier, the Government of India used to provide subsidy to the farmers who wanted to take the improved methods of irrigation but lately this lifeline has been withdrawn. The new mode is not only very sophisticated and costly but requires constant monitoring during operation.

This question was put to the chairman of the seminar on "food processing industry: challenges and opportunity", but no satisfactory answer could be given except that the matter would be looked into at an appropriate level and time.

As the Punjab Government is keen on breaking the spell of the wheat-paddy cycle syndrome, it should try to wave the magic want of proper pricing of water for the irrigation sector as well as it doing so for the other sectors.

As per the accepted figures, the Punjab Government doles out every years some Rs 250 crore to Rs 400 crore to the farmers in the form of free electricity. To make available a level field to the new entrant, either the state government should make available a matching grant or subsidy or withdrawn it from the other competing mode or follow the wellknown lifeline mode of 50:50.

Without any such mode the improved modes of irrigation would not see the light of the day. These modes are essential for the farmers so that they can obtain sufficiently high yield and good quality of vegetables. As per experts an increase of 50 to 100 per cent is needed considering the present-day level of production of vegetables in Punjab.

The switching over to the improved mode of irrigation, drip or sprinkler will as well help Punjab to solve its two most burning problems of waterlogging and salinty and watertable decline.

In nearly 75 per cent of area of Punjab, a severe watertable decline is being experienced and in the other remaining area the problem faced is that of waterlogging and salinity.

Due to excessive positive water balance, the south-western region of Punjab is either facing waterlogging and the consequent secondary effect of salinisation or fearing its advance. Though the Punjab Government with the help of NABARD has spent about Rs 450 crore but complete cure is yet to be reported. If the farmers of the area take to the improved mode of irrigation while going in for a new rotation cycle than paddy-wheat, due to the correction in the positive water balance the cure would certainly be accelerated.

So it should not be too difficult a decision for the Punjab government to take and wave the magic want of proper pricing off irrigation water.

Fruits of urban agriculture
Radhakrishna Rao

URBAN farming has for many years now remained an inseparable part of many cities around the world. But in recent years, the adverse impact of urban agriculture on health and environment has made the civic authorities to take a fresh look at urban farming and its implications. Unfortunately there is a very little dialogue between health and agriculture. For, a very new health professionals are actively engaged in farming while agricultural practitioners do not normally consider health as an area of priority. Of course, health associated with the urban agriculture has been well documented. Among them are increasing urban food security improved nutrition as well as improved sanitation solutions and waste recycling. On the other hand, health risks common to urban agriculture are contamination of crops with pathogenic organise due to irrigation by water from polluted sources and human diseases transferred from disease vector attracted by agricultural activities.

According to RUAF (Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture and Forestry), urban agriculture practitioners need to find ways of actively engaging and working with the authorities in a better and planned way. A health impact assessment is an evidence-based decision making tool that could help urban farmers is a variety of ways.

To formulate urban agriculture policies that improve the health of the urban population, it is imperative to have a good overview based on research and practical experience.

Environmentalists point out that in order to develop effective policies to mitigate the health risks of urban farming, it is necessary to develop an insight into the factors that currently restrict the urban poor from engaging in safer agricultural and food production practices. For instance flooding of rice fields promotes mosquito breeding in a big way. On another front, pesticides used in the production of high value crops induce insecticide resistance in disease spreading mosquitoes and can also lead to an acute and chronic poisoning of people. Similarly, the major health risks from waste water based aquaculture are both biological hazards from potential disease causing organism in human excreta in domestic wastes and chemical hazards from industrial affluents.

But then urban agricultural plays the key role in supplying adequate quantity of fruits and vegetable to urban markets and sustaining the health of the urban populace. Diet and nutrition have clear cut health linkages. A diet which is low in vegetables and fruits is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Estimates suggest 30 to 40 per cent of certain cancer cases can be prevented by eating enough fruits and vegetables. A low intake of vegetables and fruits is also associated with micro nutrient deficiencies, hypertension, anemia, Premature delivery, Low-birth weight, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

There is an increasing realisation of the fact that intensive cultivation of fruits and vegetables in an urban setting can make an important contribution to urban food and nutrition security. Production closer to cities helps to ensure that the produce is as fresh as possible and likely to have a higher nutritional content compared to that which is stored or transported over long distances.

The other benefits of urban food policies include direct economic benefits arising from income generation, local employment and the development of small enterprises and indirect economic benefits arising from the opportunities for education, recreation and the multiplier effect of attracting new business and services.

Of course there are major differences within and between cities. However, important lessons and appropriate actions can be learnt by sharing these differences. Action requires the participation and collaboration of citizens, voluntary organisations, retailers, wholesalers, food producers, local authorities and politicians.

In the urban stretches around Manila, which typifies the best and the worst of Asian cities, urban agriculture plays an important role providing sustained, year round supply of vegetables to urban consumers. But because only 3 per cent of urban farmers own vehicles to transport produce to markets and because informal borrowing is in the form of seeds and fertilisers supplied by local dealers, farmers are tied to a marketing system directed by vegetable distributors.

Farm operations for June

— Start sowing okra and use the Punjab-8, Punjab-7 or Punjab Padmini varieties resistant to yellow vein mosaic virus. Apply 40 kg of CAN, 100 kg of superphosphate and 25 kg of muriate of potash per acre. To the crop sown for seed production purpose, apply 4 kg Thimet 10 G at sowing. For controlling weeds in bhindi, use stomp 30 EC @ 1 litre as pre-emergence or Basalin 750 ml per acre as pre-plant (before sowing) application. Dissolve either of herbicide in 200 litres of water.

— Irrigate the standing vegetable crops once a week. However, in light soils, the interval may be reduced to four to five days.

— Spray 75 to 150 g Sevin/Hexavin 50 WP in 50-100 litres of water against red pumpkin beetle on cucurbits.

— Jassid and mite attack on bhindi crop can be checked by spraying 250 ml Metasystox 25 EC or Rogor 30 Ec in 100 litres of water per acre.

— Control mites/jassids by spraying 200 ml Rogor 30 EC or 250 ml L-Malathion 50 EC in 100 litres of water per acre on cucurbits/muskmelon.

— Jassids/hadda damage to brinjal crop can be prevented by spraying 250 ml Malathion 50 EC in 100 litres of water per acre.

— Apply 20 to 25 baskets of well-rotten farmyard manure per marla and mix it thoroughly in to the soil and irrigate the plot when it comes in proper moisture conditions. Sow 400 g seed of early variety of cauliflower and 300 g seed of BH-1, BH-2, Punjab Barsati, Sada Bahar, Punjab Moti, Punjab Neelam and Jamuni Gola of brinjal in one marla bed area to obtain seedlings for transplanting in one acre.

— Sow Pusa Chetki or Punjab Ageti varieties of radish on ridges kept at 45 cm and irrigate once a week.

Plant terminal cuttings 7 to 10 cm size in sand bed under shade for rooting of cuttings in the third week. Treat the cut end with Seradix powder and remove lower 2 to 3 leaves before planting in the sand bed. Keep the bed moist and transplant the rooted cuttings in the pots after 2 to 3weeks.

The summer season flowering annuals should be watered 2 to 3 times a week. Rainy season flowering annuals seeds like balsam, gailardia, cosmos, cockscomb, etc., may be sown in the raised beds. The seeds of balsam may be sown directly in the pots bed.

Irrigate the lawn twice a week and expose the area of lawn with weed seeds to direct sunlight to kill weeds and roots.

The newly planted saplings should be protected from direct heat by using sarkanda. Late flowering types of bougainvillaea can be prunned after flowering. Irrigate the plans twice a week in this month.

— Progressive Farming, PAU