One week - the good and the bad !!

Its been a week already and and all the plants  ( well almost all) are doing pretty well.
New leaves started coming out of almost every plant and thats a good sign of progress. The picture below shows the changes in the leaf size and everything looks  very healthy and  green  as of today

However,  there were a few problems that i have  faced, which i never  came across in the book and only experience can  teach you

• The 1st three days  it is very important that the jiffy is kept wet and happy or else the plants will look wilted and  dull. these will make you feel tensed that they might not be able to make it. 
• It is very important that you get your  fertigation  and pest management schedule in hand or else  things will go hay wire. Get all your ferts stcoked up before hand.
• Termites infested on two beds and  it was very scary as they can spread very fastly. I had to rush and drench the  plants with  pesticide to get rid of that issue. Awaiting results.

Three Days after plantation

Its been three days already  and the plants are still keep me stand on my toes... i am so scared ..  these  lil plants are  soo much like  babies that have been just brought out of incubator.

On the whole the farm looked  healthy but there have been some casualities.. very very few ..  among the 25000 plants  .. u can see the plants  pics that i posted below...  except for such plants here and there, everything else was green and  averagely happy.... since the root system hasn't been well developed yet, the plants are drooping and wilting as soon as the jiffy(black cup in which they are staying)  is drying up. The wetting of the beds  doesnt seem to give enough water to them  yet !!  so i had to make  double sure that  the plants got water today and by the end of the day .. i was  pretty happy .. what looked wilted in the morning  after a whole day of  working up .. could  make them  stand firm and look fresh again ..

i was soo happy to see new leaves  that are  just emerging .. it cud  just be the  normal ageing of the plant but then what it also means is that the plants are getting used to the beds here and  are getting acclimatised.

It takes about another 10-14days  to get a good root and then i can feel  comfortable.

For now .. all is good  :)

The Big Day !! Its Plantation time !!

All Set For Plantation !!!

Bed making Phase 2

The bed making starts with  marking of  soil and wetting it properly so that it can be dug according to the size needed ..
Each bed  is 2feet wide and  about a feet and a half  high and   there is a gap of 1 ft  walking distance ..

Water  was  one of the  biggest hurdle here.. we needed soo much of water  suddenly and  we were not informed of it  before the workers from pune landed.. so   we had to rush in and  search for water tankers to  get water from the near by water sources .. awwwww.. it was such a pain ...  power cuts .. machines problems .. pipe line problems ..   ..if only i knew it earlier would have been  a lot easier in arranging for the water ..

anyways  it was  delay  by two days due to the  water issue.  then the work started off..  bed making starts with marking and digging up the soil and  making  beds...  regular  wetting with piper  while working was  very  important ..   a plank was used to finish the borders neat and in shape...

It will take another  2 days  more for the beds to be ready i guess and then the drip line will be added to it ...

if see closely the foggers are also  connected in half of the farm  in the meanwhile when the water issue was going on .. anyways it will be continued  after bed making and  will post more pics of them laters.,,,

Bed making stage 1

Making of beds is one of the important steps in a achieving a good crop. As mentioned in the previous posts, the vermicompost, rice husk and soil have been throughly mixed and rotovated with a blade so that it pulverised and mixed properly.
Then the whole of the farm is made wet with excess of water and  then let it come back to the Vapsa condition. After the  vapsa condition is  brought back it is rotovated with a tiller one last time  and   then the soil is ready for bed making .....