Agriculture Department encourages farmers to adopt direct sowing of paddy

Nawanshahr, May 20, 2022: Continuing its efforts to promote direct sowing of rice (DSR) technology among the peasantry, Agriculture and Famers’ Welfare Department on Friday organized series of awareness camps in various villages of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district.

The camps were held in Saloh and Palli Uchi villages of the district where teams of department detailed the farmers about DSR technology and its benefits. The officials motivated them to adopt the technique for sowing of paddy instead of usual method of flooding the field as it would not only save lakhs of litres of water but would also help in increasing the yield and reducing their input costs.

They said that it must be done in medium to heavy soils only as it is not suitable for light soils. Further, it should be done with DSR Drills with spray attachment (preferably), seed rate of direct seeding of rice is 8-10 kg per acre and seed treatment with sprint must be done prior to the sowing.

They said that Punjab Government led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had already announced to give Rs 1500 per acre to farmers sowing with DSR technique and administration had already deputed 51 verifiers from department of Agriculture, Horticulture, Mandi board and Soil conservation department for the verification of DSR in the district.