Village Deon's farmer Gursewak Singh Gora has been managing the paddy stubble in his fields without putting it on fire. For the last two years he has been using different techniques to manage straw and this season he has extensively used Happy Seeder agriculture implement for directly sowing wheat seeds into the bed of paddy stubble.He was motivated into stubble management after coming across various exhibitions of Krishi Vigyaan Kendra. He sowed wheat in 4 acres of land last year using Happy Seeder and earned good remunerations.He owns 2.5 acres of land and gets 35 acres on contract. He has managed stubble in 10 acres of land using baler and in rest of the land has opted for direct sowing using the Happy Seeder machine. He is fondly known as Happy Seeder Wala Gora in the village.Gursewak says that now only 6 to 7 liters of fuel is spent on sowing per acre of land/ However, when he used to put the stubble in fire, he usually ended up spending 25 to 30 liters of diesel for the same task.Besides this, the wheat seeds sown on land, which had not been subjected to fires, had lesser chances of being affected by gulli danda, bathu and other weeds and it also saved time.
He first irrigation is done after 55 days of sowing wheat, which also saves water. He opines that saving environment, the management of stubble without burning it also lowers agriculture input.Seeing Gursewak manage hi paddy stubble well, the farmers nearby have also started following him. Dr JVNS Prasad, in-charge NICRA (National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture) and Dr Ashish Murai from ATARI (Agricultural Technology Application Research Institute) Ludhiana visited his fields and appreciated his works. Assistant Director KVK Bathinda Dr Jatinder Singh Brar that while Gursewak Singh has sown wheat directly in 25 acres of area, other farmers in area have fllowed him and sown wheat using same method in around 50 acres of area.Dr Gurmeet Singh said that under NICRA exhibitions of baler and Happy Seeder are being put up at different villages. Research Fellow Mr Prakash Singh Sidhu said that farmer Gursewak Singh has also been contributing towards propagation of other good agriculture practices. For more information farmer can be contacted at 7009872690.