Comprehensive for water and soil conservation approach–SG-OFI Project.

Thottiyapatty Watershed Resource Centre

Kallai Panchayat and Thottiyapatty hamlets experiences drought conditions for a couple of years and it is dry land region. Rain fed cultivation and well irrigation are the sources of agriculture production.  The inhabitants of these villages are principally involved in marginal farming activities. SEVAI a local NGO with the support of Society General and OFI- undertaken the soil and water conservation activities as a process of promotion of crop cultivation for the benefit of marginal land holders of Thottiyapatty cluster. The project includes farming practice which improves food crops yield leading towards improved land fertility, which is the foundation of good soil conservation. Possible new techniques have the same basic characteristics as traditional practices, they

Tree Nursery Raising

are easy to understand, simple to apply, have low inputs and show a high success rate of return. Cultivations and planting are done on a gentle gradient, sometimes together with graded channel terraces. This encourages infiltration but permits surplus run-off at low velocities. Sometimes this is combined with simple practices to encourage infiltration such as returning crop residues. Strip cropping is most useful on gentle slopes, where it may reduce erosion to acceptable levels without any banks or drains. Rotations are another well established and simple practice. The object is to improve fertility by the use of legumes or to help control pest. Thorough and deep cultivation of the fallow, good weed control and pest control, a nitrogen status able to make use of the increased moisture, and good seed-bed

Percolation tank constructed

preparation that the best application of fallows might be a system of land management in which sequences of short and long-cycle crops and intervening bare fallows would be planned to optimize water use, since a full profile of stored moisture at planting time permits a crop to produce some yield even in the driest of years. Mixed cropping and inter planting are widely applied traditional techniques. A combination of crops with different planting times and different length of growth periods spreads the labour requirement of planting and of harvesting cereal crop. Surface mulching has the advantage of providing protective cover at a time when crop cover is not practical. It improves infiltration, and is also beneficially reduce soil temperature. Timeliness of farming operations is always important, particularly where the rainfall is erratic, and yields can be dramatically affected by planting or cultivating at the right time.  Other desirable

Farm manure used for production of Vermi compost for bio-farming

characteristics are a short growing season, drought resistance, and drought avoidance. The latter means the ability of the plant to adjust its growth habit according to the available moisture, Supplementary irrigation can be important because the provision of small quantities of water at critical times can have good results, for example to allow earlier planting, life-saving irrigation to carry crops through dry periods. A percolation pond, like an irrigation tank, has a structure to impound rainwater flowing through a watershed surplus flow in excess of the storage capacity of the lake has been created in Thottiyapatty.

Contour trenching as a process of soil conservation

This Percolation pond recharges water bodies for the benefit of Thottiyapatty watershed area. Percolation ponds dug in Thottiyapatty area are large open water ponds that are excavated in an area of land surrounded by a bank. They store rainwater but with the main aim of infiltrating the water to aquifers where it can be extracted using boreholes, hand-dug wells. They are constructed in areas where the base of the pond is permeable and where the aquifer to be recharged is at or near the surface and facilitates recharge into surrounding ground which in turn improves soil moisture, improves agricultural productivity and mitigates against drought and  can assist recharge of shallow wells, boreholes and springs. Tree nurseries have been raised in Thottiyapatty watershed resource centre. Tropical trees are increasingly seen as a valuable renewable natural resource. They maintain

Compressor lift irrigation in Thottiyapatty

and improve soil fertility, and provide protection from sun, wind and heavy raindrops. Trees also yield a great range of important

Thottiyapatty Adolescents

products, play a crucial role in many farming systems, and form the base of the food-chain for numerous animals. Their presence is clearly essential for the survival of people in the tropics. The farmland and woodlands where they

thrive could be managed sustainably, providing soil protection, supplies of products and other benefits in perpetuity. Now tree nursery raising and tree planting e projects are springing up all over the OFI-SG project area for the benefit, because: without trees, the land cannot support increasing human populations. The trainings provided by SEVAI under this project provide practical, illustrated guide-lines, based on general scientific understanding and local experience. The main aim is to encourage the growing, planting and care of trees and the training covers all stages from genetic selection through setting up a tree nursery to planting and successful establishment in the field incorporating check-lists, record sheets and worked examples of calculations.-Govin