Nirvaan Organic farms was established in 2007. The intent was to establish a way for natural and organic process horticulture; scientifically and technologically advance the ability to provide for increased and healthy nutrition, starting with fruits like organic alphonso mangoes and hand-squeezed frozen mango pulp, and make them available on a limited basis to the discerning consumer.
Over time, what was a barren 17 acres of land, turned into a green paradise with numerous flora and fauna, and more than 2,000 diverse plants/trees, taking into account the need to have ecological balance and diversity of plantations. A complete ban on the use of synthetic chemicals, propagated further with experimentation and use of diverse natural bio-mass vegetation, led to a an effort where almost 1,300 alphonso mango saplings were hand-picked from Ratnagiri District in Maharashtra, India, and brought to this farm, near Kanakapura Taluka, Ramnagara District, in Karnataka, India. The rocky granite stone below the earth, fed by the underground streams of fresh water from the nearby Arkavathi Reservoir and River, add to the latent heat needed to provide an authentic flavour to these alphonso mangoes; that in many eyes, is much superior in quality, texture, sweetness, colour, and fullness. than even the ones found in Ratnagiri/Deogadh areas. The entire topsoil is naturally graded in a manner where water flows from SW to NE, and collects in rainwater harvested ponds and recharges the ground to feed the borewells. The area collects rich rain during more than 6 months of rainfall amounting to about 600+ mm of rainfall per year.
The farm is surrounded by mountains on the Southern to Western sides, beyond which lies the Arkavathy Reservoir on the SW, fed by the Arkavathy River. The North front of the farm also has mountains, opening out the East for land cultivation and townships. The mountains protect the farm from volatile changes in weather like tornadoes, or even wild animals. The entire farm is walled (compounded) to protect itself, and bordered with tall Mahogany trees and hard Neem Trees to break the impact of damaging high force winds which may occur once in a few years.
Apart from rain water harvesting/recharging in the NE corner (lowest point in elevation of the farm) through a 60’x60’x10’ pond, the farm has a 4,00,000 litre capacity water storage tank built into the ground and standing tall, at the SW corner of the land which is almost a 60’ higher elevation naturally than the NE
corner. This makes it ideal for water to be fed daily to all plants naturally through gravitation forces (enhanced by power pumps) via drip irrigation and micro-sprinklers.
The entire soil is subject to bio-mass vegetation to help protect it’s nutrition, and supplemented by natural cow/goat manure, and seaweed. Usage of neem trees to help protect other trees, as also to use all neem based products like neem leaves crush, oil, and seeds, act as natural pesticide in addition to growth enhancing fertilizers. Flowering induction and fruit growth is enhanced through organic sprays of plant derived amino acids and nutrition sprays, in addition to suitable tree pruning and de-foliaging methods to promote growth, and use natural light, airflow, and humidity conditions optimally.
Each fruit is left on trees to the most possible time every season, then hand-picked, hand-washed, hand-kept in natural ripening and protected till it is sent to the consumer.
Suitable help/advise is given via farm visits by renowned mango and horticulture experts like Dr. V. Ravindra (retired plant physiology scientist, IIHR, Bengaluru, India) and Dr. Satyanarayana (in memoriam; ex-scientist, IIHR, Bengaluru, India). The below process on Conservation Horticulture and Environmental Carbon Sequestering as guided by IIHR (see references), is followed to the extent possible on the farm. Organic certification is underway, as is a strict protocol to keep the area insulated from neighbouring land areas which may use inorganic methods.
Nirvaan Organic Farms Adopts Conservation Horticulture to enhance Carbon Sequestration in Mango based Cropping systems and combat Climate Change (IIHR, see reference below):
Horticulture in whatever age, whether natural, economic and social conditions, has to provide nutritional security to human beings. Conservation Agriculture has gained increasing interest worldwide over the last couple of decades. This approach to farming is very attractive for farmers: it boosts yields, saves labour and money, and helps to conserves the soil and the environment. Conservation Horticulture (CH) is a powerful mechanism to adapt to climate change by increasing resilience to drought and water-use efficiency. Climate change is believed to have a great impact on soils. Soil organic carbon gets oxidized and depleted with increasing temperatures. Runoff /wind erosion incidences may increase due to increase in extreme climatic events and are reflected in poorer soil fertility, loss of soil biota, water stress and ground water depletion. This is a system based on minimal soil disturbance (no-till, minimum tillage) and permanent soil cover (mulch, crop residue) combined with diversified rotations with legumes. The central theme of these is the maintenance of a permanent or semi-permanent soil cover – be it a live crop or dead mulch – that serves to protect the soil from sun, rain, and wind erosion and to feed soil biota.
India is witnessing severe degradation of its farmlands. Much of this degradation can be attributed to common, but exploitative, farming practices: –
- ploughing that destroys the soil structure and degrades organic matter, burning or removing crop residues, mono-cropping, and so on.
- Soil and water management practices that sustain and enhance the productivity ofarable soils are a must and are a vital part of the long-term solution to food insecurity and poverty
Nirvaan Organic Farm’s Conservation Horticulture Practice aims to overcome these problems. It consists of three simple principles: –
- disturb the soil as little as possible
- keep the soil covered, and
- mix and rotate crops.
Fundamental to CH is continuous and simultaneous practice of minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, and crop rotations in horticulture crop based systems be it perennial or annual.
The objectives of CH are achieved by:
- planting without seedbed preparation through the soil cover to minimise disturbance of soil.
- a permanent vegetative soil cover or mulch to protect the soil surface.
- management of crop residues and control of weeds with minimal application of hazardous herbicides.
- improving soil fertility and encourage soil structure formation.
- adhering to Integrated Pest Management technologies.
Application of these CH principles serve two specific purposes- permanent soil cover and minimal soil disturbance to generate in-situ organic matter, enhance soil biological activity, prevent soil erosion and ensure soil and water conservation. It further enhances soil aggregation and improves soil physical condition. Over the long-term, conservation practices prevent hardpans from being formed, protect the soil from being eroded, increase soil moisture, and restore soil fertility leading to stabilization of crop yields and improving production. Conservation practices enhance natural biological processes above and below the ground by reducing interventions such as mechanical soil tillage to an absolute minimum. Crop rotation is associated with the promotion of healthy and lively soils, thereby reducing pesticide and herbicide requirements, environmental pollution as well as enhancing natural biodiversity.
Conservation Horticulture addresses:
- Horticultural production: CH has tremendous potential for achieving sustainable yield increases by improving the growth conditions for crops and the efficiency of input.
- Natural resource base: CH builds up soil fertility by facilitating better infiltration of rainwater enabling recharge of groundwater and reverses soil degradation processes which reduces erosion and leaching and, in tum, water pollution.
- Biodiversity: CH enhances and conserves biodiversity in the field.
- Labour shortage: CH works on minimum input principle and hence eliminates power intensive soil tillage, thus reducing the drudgery and labour required for crop production substantially for small scale farmers. For medium and large farmers, it reduces fuel requirements and the need for machinery to a great extent.
- Climate change: In drought conditions, CH reduces crop water requirements by 30-40%, by conserving water through surface mulch and enhanced organic matter, facilitates deeper rooting of crops and makes better use of soil water. During heavy rains under severe wet conditions, CH reduces the danger of soil erosion and downstream flooding by facilitating rain water infiltration. Thus, CH reduces crop vulnerability to extreme climatic events.
Livelihoods:
Farmers who adopt CH saves time on tilling and can devote the saved time for additional income generation activities like processing, animal husbandry etc. Thus, CH gives farm families opportunity to improve their livelihoods.
Mango-based cropping system offers a perennial-annual integrated CH system and imitates “natural” forests. Hence, it provides the same ecosystem services as do forests. Nirvaan Organic Farms provides necessary critical habitats for many kinds of flora and fauna due to their high diversity than conventional monoculture orchards and annual agriculture. CH widens the scope of rejuvenation of old and senile orchards, annihilates the degradation effects on land, infuses and brings back biological activity and health of the system.
The prime benefits of CH are through imparting resilience to extreme climatic events like increased intensity and frequency of droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events. Unlike annual crops, the perennial crops being deep rooted, can survive and continue to yield in extreme climatic events. The ecosystem services provided by polyculture under CH insures the crops against crop failure due to pests, disease, or weather by having multiple backups of additional crops, so that round-the-year, there is always an economic yield of one kind or the other. Thus, CH is a sound way to an “Evergreen Horticulture”. Nirvaan Organic Farms fully adheres to this precept.
Nirvaan Organic Farm: Combating land degradation and improvement of land productivity –
Minimum soil disturbance (Zero tillage/minimum tillage): Soil when disturbed, exposes the soil organic matter which becomes vulnerable to oxidation and ultimate loss from the soil. Tillage is the prime horticulture operation that exposes soil organic matter and depletes the organic matter level in the soil. As the number of tilling events increases, the scope of repeated exposure of organic matter also increases and the soil gets aerated leading to organic matter depletion through oxidation. This stimulates and speeds up the microbial processes. As a consequence, both organic matter production and its conservation is dramatically affected by conventional tillage.
The impact occurs in many ways:
1. Ploughing enhances the impact of rain leading to soil erosion as it leaves behind no residues on the soil surface. Since ploughing leads to loss of soil organic matter, the survival of many of the soil fauna like microbes and earthworms drastically reduce because it disturbs their habitats like burrows and living spaces. Continuous tillage destroys soil aggregates that provide appropriate physical conditions for root proliferation and many soil processes are destroyed by such operations which break the clods and smoothen the surface.
2. Decreased decomposition rates: Tillage exposes soil organic matter by degrading soil structure and cause shrinkage of soil due to loss of soil moisture. Further it reduces the population of soil fauna such as earthworms that contribute to nutrient cycling and soil structure. Zero tillage (called as Bio-Tillage) implies minimum or no mechanical soil disturbance and growing crops without mechanical seedbed preparation.
3. Impact on soil fauna and soil fertility: Compared to mono-crop cultures with conventional tillage, CH practices produce huge biomass from the cover crops/intercrops etc., in addition to the main tree litter. Thus, under CH there will be a layer of organics consisting of leaves, stems and stalks etc. from the previous crops at different stages of decomposition covering the soil surface. This, in reality is natural tillage by the fauna that creates a stable soil structure through accumulation of soil organic matter and producing darker coloured top soil. A vegetal cover on soil surface in tropical areas create greater humidity in soil and keeps the soil relatively cooler than conventional systems. This is conducive to the activity of soil organisms. Crop rotations and cover crops involving legumes encourage N2 fixation. Enhanced population of beneficial organisms like nutrient mobilizers and PGPRs will enable the soil system in holding and releasing nutrients in most appropriate forms that are readily absorbed by the plant roots. Having crop’s cover of variable rooting depths and root spread on the orchard floor offers little scope for the plant nutrients to be lost through leaching into the aquifer. Hence CH practices in orchards create conditions that are similar to natural forest ecosystems and generate an upward spiral in soil productivity.
4. Reduction of erosion and water pollution: Intercrops or cover crops in an orchard of mango acts in multiple ways. It does not allow rain drops to hit the ground directly. The roots of the crops on the floor of the orchard hold soil tightly so that the top soil is not carried away by the water. Thus, CH practices in mango orchards lead to a significant reduction in erosion, and thus to a reduction in water pollution.
5. Enhancement of biodiversity: Key functions of orchard ecosystems are governed by the diversity of the flora and fauna in the ecosystem. Monoculture with conventional practices evade many of the congenial environments needed for survival of many of the flora and fauna. This is aggravated further by use of herbicides and pesticides. CH provides more habitats for earthworms, micro-organisms, reptiles, birds, small mammals, and spiders and predacious insects, amongst others, and more food for eco-function players, including organics, insects and seeds, which in tum lead to an increase in species and population.
6. Carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas emission and mitigation of climate changes: Effect of agriculture on climate change is primarily due to production of carbon dioxide through organic matter decomposition and plant respiration. This is the primary gas that contributes to climate change. Conservation horticulture is an important area for its mitigation through soil carbon sequestration. Under conventional agriculture there is a net decrease in carbon stocks in the biosphere. If one ton of carbon from soil organic matter is oxidised/lost it emits approximately 3.7 tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. It means that if one ton of carbon is stored in soil as organic matter we can reduce atmosphere CO2 by 3.7 tons. Perennial horticulture and other tree based cropping systems are one of our most efficient tools to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and pull it in to the soil for long-term storage.
7. Reducing losses of nutrients from the soil: Trees normally have 25-30% of their biomass in their roots. These roots penetrate deep into the profiles and expand the forage area for absorption of nutrients both depth-wise and lateral distance. Hence trees can capture nutrients not accessible by annual crops and make them available to crop production again through litter fall. The quality of litter produced by woody perennials like mango is beneficial because of its higher content of polyphenols (lignin and tannins), which slows the decomposition rate, when compared with grasses and annual herbs.
2. Permanent Soil Cover:
a. Crop residue management: Annual or perennial cropping systems where crop residues are well managed, such systems:
1. Return all residues to the system. This in turn adds soil organic matter, which increases water infiltration and retention capacity of the soil, improves quality of the seedbed,
2. buffers pH and facilitates availability of nutrients;
3. Helps in long-term storage of ‘C’ in the soil;
4. Makes nutrients available for both plant uptake and for soil biological activity.
5. Reduces rain drop impact, slows down rainwater runoff on the surface and thus increase infiltration and soil moisture content.
6. Prevents soil erosion by providing a cover.
7. Reduce water loss through evaporation and avoid desiccation from the soil surface.
b. Permanent soil cover (Mulch): Soil mulching can be done by any of the two methods like:
1. Produce mulch material in the farm where it is used – in situ mulching systems. Here the cover crop residue falls in the same place where it is produced – plant residues remain where they fall on the ground;Grow mulch material elsewhere and bring to use in a place where it is required-cut-and-carry mulching systems.
A permanent soil cover with cover crops like Mucuna Pruriens or Stylosanthes protect the soil against raindrop impact and erosion, and enhance its fertility.
(Refer above Video on Mucuna Pruriens Seeds by IIHR)
* ii. Title: Mucuna Pruriens: The Natural Power to Fuel Organic Conservation Horticulture
Apart from this, crop residues can also be used as mulch to provide a protective cover of vegetative residues such as stubbles, maize stalks, straw and palm fronds on the soil surface. This virtually eliminates erosion, reduces weed growth and adds
* organic matter to the soil. No crop residues should be burnt under the CH principles at Nirvaan Organic Farms
* cover on the soil surface with dead crop residues (mulch layer) enhances the infiltration of water during rains and reduces the evaporative loss of water from soil. The extent of infiltration depends upon the extent of soil cover with residues. Favourable conditions are created by crop residue cover and other CH practices through an improved soil porosity by higher number of bigger aggregates and through the pores left by plant roots or caused by earthworms, insects or other soil organisms. An increased level of porosity, larger aggregates and increased macropores are created by the crop residues leading to these benefits. In CH system the density of the residues vary with different crops and hence the ability to increase water infiltration.
CH practices in mango based cropping systems at Nirvaan Organic Farms have contributed to the protection of soil surface and thus to the maintenance and/or improvement of physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the soil, including adaptation of effective soil depth through their roots. Vegetative cover is essential in CH for keeping the soil shaded with the highest humidity level possible for enhancing, utilizing and recycling of the mineralized nutrients.
* Cover crops like Mucuna and mulching with crop residues also helps in suppression of weeds by physical and allelopathic means leading to a reduction in use of agrochemicals and thus production costs apart from providing protection from impact of raindrops. The ultimate benefit of CH practices is an overall improvement in the on-farm biodiversity and sustainable ecosystem functioning.
Rainwater Use-Efficiency: Under CH systems the rain water is completely conserved through infiltration and retention. Increased infiltration and retention of soil moisture in the root-zone through CH systems will result in:
1. maximized rainfall utilization and improved yields.
2. recharging of groundwater with accrued benefits of securing the water level in wells and the continuity of streams and river flows.
3. insures crop against risk of yield losses against drought.
1. 3. Cover crops / Intercrops / Crop rotations:
Soils are prone to erosion if the surface is exposed. Under CH systems at Nirvaan Organic Farms, it provides a cover of the soil surface through cover crops. These cover crops are fundamental component for stability of the CH system. A cover crop may be any crop grown within the system to provide soil cover. Such cover crops may be an economically important crop like food legumes or Mucuna Pruriens or sweet potato etc., or a green manure crop that produces huge biomass along with nitrogen fixation. These cover crops may be an annual or a biennial or even some perennial herbaceous plants grown in a pure or mixed stand mainly during monsoon period or may be throughout the year. The main purpose of such cover crops is to prevent soil erosion but they also reduce water losses, keeps soil surface cool, stimulate soil life, suppress weeds, promote an increased biodiversity in the CH-ecosystem and eventually add organic matter to the soil.
Cover crops yield benefits like:
* Protection of soil surface, when it is fallow.
* Additional source of in-situ organic matter that improves soil structure.
* Create a healthy and improved topsoil.
* Helps in recycling of nutrients and mobilizing them in the soil profile.
* Creating capillaries through deeply penetrated roots and sometimes penetrating even the hard pans in such poor soils.
* there-by increasing water percolation capacity of the soil.
* Helps break soil compaction, control weeds and pests.
* Soil Resilience to exogenous (external inputs), and endogenous (internal soil properties) factors.
The principles of CH at Nirvaan Organic Farms like enhancing biodiversity, soil biological activity and rotational cropping systems, minimum or no soil disturbance create a congenial environment for production and maintenance of crop residues on the soil surface. This minimizes damage to the environment and provide organic matter and nutrients.
In summary, the five principles that Conservation Horticulture provides benefits to Nirvaan Organic Farms are:
1. Zero or minimum tillage causing no soil disturbance.
2. Direct seeding.
3. Cover crops to have permanent soil cover.
4. Organic matter supply through in-situ generation of crop residues.
5. Bio-control and efficient use of the soil profile through crop rotation.
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References:
1. 1. Conservation horticulture to enhance carbon sequestration in mango based cropping systems and combat climate change; Ganeshamurthy, Ravindra, and Bhatt; ICAR – Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru, India 560 089. Technical Bulletin No. 66; 2017