Training programme on “Farm ponds and Installation of Rainguage" at adopted village, Ibrahimpur on 21-10-2019

A training programme on “Farm ponds” was organized by Dr. A.V. Ramanjaneyulu, Sr. Scientist (Agro.) & Head, Dr. N. Sainath, Scientist (Soil Science) and Ms. D. Sravanthi, Scientist (Agro.), ARS, Tornala at adopted village i.e., Ibrahimpur, Narayanraopet mandal, Siddipet district. Officials from Department of Agriculture, Narayanraopet mandal, Mr. K. Devaiah, Sarpanch and K. Nagesh Reddy, RSS Co-ordinator and farmers from the village have participated in the programme. Dr. A.V. Ramanjaneyulu has explained about design, construction and advantages of farm ponds in rainfed agriculture. Farm ponds constructed in the light textured soils should be line with HDPE sheet of 500 micron thickness to enhance water storage period. He added that rain water collected and stored in the farm ponds should be used for scheduling life saving irrigation through alternate furrow or sprinkler or drip methods at critical stages such as flowering and grain filling for rainfed crops when the dry exceeds 10 days. Life saving irrigation should also be accompanied by recommended fertilizer application for enhancing the dry land crop productivity. Ms. D. Sravanthi and Dr. A.V. Ramanjaneyulu have explained in detail about installation and advantages of rainguage in Agriculture. One non-recording rain guage was also installed in the premises of Gram panchayat building and few farmers were trained regarding measurement of rainfall. Dr. N. Sainath informed the house that 80 soil samples were collected from farmers fields of the village. Soil health cards will be distributed and fertility map will be displayed in the village with in few days. He explained the importance of soil test based fertilizer recommendation. Mr. B. Vidhyakar Reddy, Mandal Agriculture Officer, Narayanraopet mandal, has requested the scientists to explain about fertilizer management, pink boll worm and seed production. The Senior Scientist (Agro.) & Head, ARS, Tornala suggested the farmers to apply only straight fertilizers but not complex fertilizers for top dressing. He also enlightened the farmers about Zn deficiency (20 kg of ZnSo4 as basal or foliar spray of ZnSO4@ 2g/lit) in rice and Magnesium deficiency (MgSo4@ 10g/ lit twice at 10 days interval) in cotton. Furthermore, he explained about management of pink bollworm including arranging pheromone traps (4-8/acre), application of neem oil (5 ml/lit), Quinolphos 2ml/lit or Profenophos 2 ml/lit or Thiodicarb 1.5 g/lit in the initial stages and Cypermethrin or Lamdacyhalothrin 1 ml/lit in the later stages depending on the severity. Later, pheromone traps for pink bollworm control were distributed to the farmers.