Casuarina

The initial crop planted at Thenkodipakkam immediately after Registration was Casuarina . Main reasons were suitability to the soil and lack of experience on my side. Non availability of sufficient irrigation resources prompted me to choose Drip Irrigation as i was not confident of the Openwell .

Spoke to tnpl prabhakar at panruti on 24sep22 - No registration for speed saplings for 1month. Casuarina junghuhniana ready stock available. https://agritech.tnau.ac.in/forestry/forestry_cas_jungu.html ↗

Locals suggest purchasing saplings from vegaakollai or from katrampakkam.

The casuarina ploughing procedure given by Balaraman and Jayaraman.

Overall, the combined inoculation of Azospirillum + Paenibacillus polymyxa + AM fungus produced excellent growth and biomass.

Vesicular Arbuscular Mychorizae(VAM culture), Paecilomyces,Pseudomonas fluorescens and  Trichoderma viride.

Chlorpyriphos  at  0.2 per cent.

Ploughing for casuarina - Balaram

Balaram called on 2022-10-12. Already jayaraman commenced ploughing with Swaraj855.

First use Disc plough after rain in summer, to remove arugampul followed by one turn of 5 Point Plough or duck foot Plough . Leave this to dry.

Then use cultivator two turns followed by Disc plough to create varappu. Then use flattening to flatten the land.

Now use cultivator again followed by rotavator.

Once casuarina saplings have been planted, after first weeding, put ulundu as intercrop.

Ploughing for casuarina - Jayaraman

For casuarina At least 4 saal or turns with 5 point and 4 turns with 9 point cultivator and a final 1 round with rotavator. Above information as per Jayaraman

Ploughing by Jayaraman

Jayaraman tried to plough today i.e 2022-10-07 . He is not satisfied. May need to wait for more rain.

Jayaraman ploughed one turn on 2022-10-09 for 3.5acres with 5 Point Plough followed by another 1.5 acres on 2022-10-10. Mohan expressed dissatisfaction only after 2 days i.e only on 2022-10-13. Went to farm 2022-10-15 and took some photos along with Mohan https://photos.app.goo.gl/gGhgPFCX4tfQFFXi9 ↗

Informed Jayaraman not to do anymore ploughing.

Ploughing rates

2022-10-07 Somu rate 2500/1500 for 5 point and cultivator Jayaraman initially asked 3000 but agreed for 2500 Gopi mentioned Ganesan will do at 2.5k, but he looks at 3k Balaraman looks at 3k Prem hasn’t quoted a rate yet.

Nutrients

For nutrients management in Casuarina applied both water solublle fertilizers like 19:19:19, Humic acid, EDTA chelated Micronutrient mix and bio-fertilizer .