Conjunctive use of water enables the dry land farming with minimum water for irrigation-OFI/SG/SEVAI Projects.

Water divining process in dry land Thottiyapatty

Conjunctive use of water enables the dry land farming with minimum water for irrigation.

Due to severe droughts for the past three years, the farmers of Tottiyapatty region of Tamilnadu find it very difficult to sustain Agriculture both garden lands farming and Dry land farming.SEVAI in collaboration with OFI/ SG has evolved as a set of techniques and management practices to be used by farmers to continually adapt to the presence or lack of moisture in a given crop cycle. Water is a precious natural resource and development of ground water for increasing the agricultural production to meet the growing requirement of the people is very important. OFI/ SG project is being implemented to mobilise all efforts to maximise the productivity of agricultural land. One of the major impediments of full exploitation of the possibility of intensive agriculture is the lack of assured and dependable irrigation water supply throughout the year. The rainfall in large parts of the cropped area is low and uncertain in its distribution. Therefore, there is a strong need for irrigation arose. The

Drilling of irrigation bore wells in Thottiyapatty

average yield, which is dependent on effective irrigation, is usually low with high fluctuations from year to year. The minor irrigation schemes provide the farmers with controlled and timely irrigation which the new high yielding varieties of seeds demand. As the surface water projects alone are not able to meet the full demand of water, farmers are being supported by water and soil conservation process in the dryland region of Thottiyapatty OFI/SG/SEVAI Project by deepening open wells and tube-wells in their cultivation area to provide supplementary irrigation. Dryland farming

Ground nut cultivation in Thottiyapatty

involves the constant assessing of the amount of moisture present or lacking for any given crop cycle and planning accordingly. Dryland farmers were given training to financially succeed they have to be aggressive during the good years in order to offset the bad years."Terracing" is also practiced by farmers on a smaller scale by laying out the direction of furrows to slow water runoff downhill, usually by plowing along either contours. Thus Moisture is being conserved by eliminating weeds and leaving crop residue to shade the soil. Once moisture is available for the crop to use, it is used as effectively as possible. Seed planting depth and timing are carefully considered to place the seed at a depth at which sufficient moisture exists. The nature of dry land farming makes it particularly susceptible to erosion, especially wind erosion. Some techniques for conserving soil moisture such as frequent tillage to kill weeds are at odds with techniques for conserving topsoil. The rainfall in large parts of the cropped area is low and uncertain in its distribution. Therefore, there is a strong need for irrigation. The average yield, which is dependent on effective irrigation, is usually low with high fluctuations from year to year. The area under irrigation has increased substantially currently after the adopting soil and water conservation techniques.  -Govin