Philosophy of Natueco Farming

        We have almost exhausted our arable land. In Maharashtra 58.5% of land is under cultivation. We require 35% of land under real good forest. More than 2/3 rd of our farmers has less than one hectored of land. These are real single family farms - not commercial farms. We therefore now have to think of intensive farming rather than extensive farming, more of multicrop, multilevel integrated cultivation rather than vast expanses of mono-culture commercial crops. We have to think of sustainable, subsisfance farming for these small, marginal farmers.

        Soil, Water, Sunshine and Knowledge are the four main parameters around which we have to work.

        The underground Parts of the tree - called roots -  and their surroundings is an extremely interesting environment with multifaceted flora and fauna of micro-organisms. Roots form almost 30-35% of the entire tree mass. There is a general feeling that tree take their food from soil. But trees don't eat soil. They only take minerals - chiefly Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium - from soil in small quantities. If we take out whole plant, dry it and then burn it, we get small amount of ash which is the amount of minerals (generally called micro-nutrients) taken is very small quantities are of course very important. But what we see as tree is mostly material manufactured by the plant itself with the help of atmospheric Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, with the help of Chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is the green material in plant leafs. It produces sugars with the help of Sunshine and the phenomenon is called Photosynthesis.

        Roots re of two types – Shoot roots which go deep in soil and "Anchor" the tree there in. they also take water from deep below ground like pumps. The other roots are called feeder roots which take water, minerals and oxygen from the soil. Their combined length may add up to several kilometers in length. These feeder roots are predominantly in the upper 45 to 60 cms. of soil. Plant roots cannot take in organic minerals in their natural state. The soil micro-organism converts them into digestible farm. And it is to nourish and mature these micro-organisms that we have to put lot of organic material in the soil. These are basically 2 kinds of bacteria - the anaerobic and aerobic. The anaerobic bacteria work in the absence of oxygen while aerobic bacteria work only in the presence of oxygen. The first of these are found in septic tanks or biogas disaster chamber and have obnoxious smell. The aerobic bacteria are very active in compost heaps. In addition to these aerobic bacteria are also present fungi and a host of micro organisms from 1mm to as big as our well known earth warms. Together they decompose organic material and convert it into manure easily absorbable by plant roots. You will see and learn about how to prepare this micro-organism rich soil from organic matter into especially prepared soil. Only the completely digested organic material called humus is useful to plants.

        It is to be noted that anaerobically digested organic matter cannot be immediately used by plants. It takes 2-3 weeks for this matte to get converted into root absorbable form. The aerobically digested organic material is immediately used by plants.

        In addition to giving support to root system and habitat to micro-organisms, soils also serve the third important purpose for the plant. They store water vapor and air in the interstice of soil articles. Excess water into the soil is called gravity water. It drains off and recharges ground water table. Plant roots take their required water and oxygen from interpore water vapor and moist humus. A good coverage of soil by organic matter (biomass) also helps reduce loss of water through evaporation.

        In the accompanying slide show you will find detailed description for the preparation of this organic soil, photos of micro-organisms etc.

        The above ground part of trees or the visual part which we normally see as a tree consists of shoots, branches, stems, leaf, flowers and fruits. Like all life on earth a plant also goes through various stages of life - childhood, youth, maturity, old age and decay. We have seasonal which have a short one season of life span. We have multi-seasonal (2-3 years of life) and peremials which live long - even hundreds of years - what is more important is that each branch also goes through these stages. Thus we have the lower part of a branch become almost woody, the middle third in its prime and the top third in its growing childhood. In a way a tree is a colony of independent branch families, where life is growing and productive. The stem and big branches work only as a to & fro conveyance system between the roots and branches. Some pert of their may store foods which are given out at the time of fruiting. Knowing these things well helps us at the time of pruning which is required to remove non-productive burden of the tree.

        The leafs which are the manufacturers of Sugars with the help of photosynthesis also go through 3 stages of life – childhood, youth & old-age. Leaf fall is as a kind on Nature's own pruning. These Sugars are the liquiding blocks of the tree-body. We are in India very lucky to have around 240-250 full sunny days in a year. The sugar factories of plant using photosynthesis are in full operation all these days. Europe has only 40-50 full sunny days per year.

        There are many other popularities of plants, creepers, tuber-plants & trees which must be learnt in order to understand the health & productivity of plants viz color of leafs, size & number of leafs, distance between successive nodes of stem, sumptuous growth of feeder roots, a balanced & symmetrical growth of tree etc.

        The slide show attempts to introduce you to same of these. However please remember:-

        By seeing or hearing or reading you are only informed.

        By thinking & actually doing you understand.

        & by practicing you will error less & less as the time go on.

        You must produce results by design, not by chance.

        When man first, accidentally perhaps, found out that a single grain that sprouts & grows into a plant giving back too grains, Agriculture was borne. Since then through sustained efforts of many person knowledge has accumulated. Knowledge is the most important external input in Agriculture.