A one-day awareness camp on non-burning of paddy stubble was organized by Farm Advisory Service Center Sangrur under the leadership of Director Extension Education of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) Ludhiana at Ramnagar Chhanna, adopted village of Block Sherpur on October 10, 2024. More than 30 farmers participated in the camp. Dr. Ashok Kumar, District Extension Specialist (Soil Science) created awareness about the adverse effects of burning paddy stubble such as complete loss of nutrients like nitrogen and sulfur and release of toxic gases like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane and nitric oxide harmful to humans and animals into the atmosphere, increase in road accidents, death of birds etc. He further said that burning one tonne of paddy straw destroys 400 kg of organic carbon, 5.5 kg of nitrogen, 2.3 kg of phosphorus, 25 kg of potash and 1.2 kg of sulphur. Wheat can be sown using various types of machines like Happy Seeder, Super Seeder, Smart Seeder and low cost surface seeder machines for managing paddy straw in the field itself.
With an aim to saturate a technology in the adopted village, Farm Advisory Service Centre Sangrur had collected soil samples from every field of the village along with GPS coordinates which were sent to PAU Ludhiana for testing of micro and macro elements and after testing the soil samples, Dr. Kumar explained each soil test report in detail to the individual farmer. He appealed to the farmers to use chemical fertilizers in the upcoming Rabi crops only on the basis of the soil test report of their fields. He also highlighted the symptoms of various nutrient deficiencies such as manganese deficiency in wheat and berseem, zinc and sulphur deficiency in wheat etc. Farmers were motivated to improve the wheat seeds with bio-fertilizer consortium to increase the organic health of the soil.
Information was shared about the new wheat and gram varieties recommended by PAU Ludhiana and their availability at the center for sale. Apart from this, metal scrap for good health of animals, PAU literature as well as vegetable seeds like coriander, carrot, pea and gram were also sold. Finally, various questions asked by the farmers such as management of manganese deficiency in wheat, prevention of plant oil in paddy etc. were answered. Finally, S: Sehajpreet Singh and S: Manpreet Singh, progressive farmers of the village, thanked the Farm Advisory Service Center Sangrur team.
Read more: https://www.pau.edu/index.php?_act=manageEvent&DO=viewEventDetail&dataE=datae&intID=9856
