Leaving no stone unturned in checking the burning of paddy residue, the Skill Development Centre at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) conducted a one-day training course on “Crop Residue Management”.
As many as 23 farmers participated in the training, which was held under the stewardship of Dr MS Bhullar, Director of Extension Education.
“Since tackling of air pollution during festive season has been a top priority, PAU planned this training course to stop farmers from compounding the air pollution problem through stubble burning. The smoke emanating from straw blaze has been proven to be detrimental to human, animal, plant and soil health,” observed Dr Rupinder Kaur, Associate Director (Skill Development).
Technical Coordinator Dr Mahesh Narang, Head, Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering; and the Course Coordinator Dr Preetinder Kaur focused on residue management technologies and stressed the importance of the training course, respectively.
Dr Gurpreet Kaur apprised the farmers of early maturing paddy varieties, while Dr Harminder Singh Sidhu and Dr Manpreet Singh explained wheat sowing methods using happy seeder, smart seeder and super seeder on combine harvested paddy fields.
Dr Baldev Dogra, Dr Jasvir Singh Gill and Dr Apoorav Prakash demonstrated the use of baler, surface seeder-cum-mulching, rotator, mould board plough, etc. for the management of paddy straw.