PAU ORGANISES FIELD DAY ON MACHINERY FOR PADDY CULTIVATION

Ludhiana, May 12, 2017: With the arrival of the peak season of paddy cultivation, a field day on “Machinery for paddy cultivation and safety issues” was organized at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU). Nearly 350 participants including progressive farmers, extension engineers, field staff, farm machinery manufacturers, officials from the State Department of Agriculture and scientists from various departments of PAU attended the field day. The programme was organized by the Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, PAU.

In his remarks, the Chief Guest, Dr Baldev Singh Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor, PAU, expressed concern over the rising cost of paddy cultivation. “Paddy transplanting is highly labour intensive operation and requires around 80-90 man-h/acre. Transplanting of paddy in Punjab is done by migratory labour from other states on contract basis,” he added. Dr Dhillon observed mechanical transplanting of paddy nursery can play an important role in decreasing the cost of operation and in enhancing the yield of crop. About stubble burning, Dr Dhillon expressed his confidence that the farmers of the state have always adopted PAU recommendations and would further also follow his advice of not indulging in residue burning.

Er Manmohan Kalia, Joint Director of Agriculture (Engineering), who was the guest of honour, informed the gathering about different government schemes and subsidy programmes (regarding purchase of farm machinery) operational for the benefit of farmers. He emphasized on the development of farm machinery banks by groups of framers to reduce the cost of operation of farm machinery. He also urged the farmers to motivate village youth to come forward to start the custom hiring and repair centres of farm machinery.

Dr Ashok Kumar, Director of Research, PAU, said the University is working on the development of paddy transplanters for the last two decades. It has developed manually operated as well as engine operated transplanters, he added. Farmers face difficulty in timely paddy transplantation due to labour shortage and high labour rates, he disclosed. Dr Kumar further observed, “By using paddy transplanter, number of plants per sq can be increased near to the optimum plant density that is 33 plants per sq m, thus, resulting in enhanced yield of paddy.”

Dr R.S. Sidhu, Director of Extension Education, PAU, informed the University is regularly organizing field days and training camps to train farmers regarding raising of mat type nursery and operation of paddy transplanter/machines. Because of this, some of the farmers in Punjab have adopted these machines and are transplanting some area of paddy by using transplanters, he told.

Dr Manjeet Singh, Head, Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, PAU, said there are two types of paddy transplanters available. These include self-propelled walk behind and self-propelled four wheel type paddy transplanters. There are around 650 paddy transplanters working in Punjab covering about 3,500 acres of area under transplanting by these machines, he revealed. He also informed the cost of operation of transplanting done manually has gone up to around Rs 2750/acre including cost on nursery sowing that is Rs 350 per acre. The cost of operation using transplanters is Rs 1600-1800/acre including cost on mat type nursery. There is saving of about Rs 1000/acre (35%) on cost of operation using transplanters. He further added PAU has developed and recommended different machines/technologies to manage left over straw after combine harvesting of paddy.

Later, Dr M K Narang, a farm engineer, proposed the vote of thanks. A technical session was also held that was followed by demonstrations on mat type nursery raising, paddy transplanters and direct seeded drill.