Crop burning issue

• Many farmers in Punjab, Haryana and northern Rajasthan have resorted to stubble burning this year as well. Punjab’s Remote Sensing Centre has estimated over 19,000 incidents of paddy straw burning in the state till the end of October.
• The issue of stubble burning has come to fore after majority of the farmers shifted to the use of machinery for harvesting the paddy crop in October and November leaving behind 8-12 inches of paddy straw.
• Every year in Punjab, about 7 to 8 million metric tonnes of paddy residue is burnt openly. Toxic chemicals, which result in respiratory problems, are released in the atmosphere. Farmers burn the paddy stubble as it involves no cost. Burning fields also affects the quality of the soil, robbing it of vital nutrients.
• The national capital is the most affected by bad air quality as it lies close to Punjab and Haryana where paddy burning is a common phenomenon.
• Due to little economic value of stubble as animal feed and other general uses, farmers are prompted to burn it on the field instead of incurring a high cost on collecting it.
• Rice straw in Punjab and Haryana has high silica content and thus it is non-palatable to animals. If the stubble is used as fodder it impacts the quality of milk. The quantity of calcium in milk decreases by at least two percentage points if rice straw is used as fodder.

About Turbo Happy Seeder (THS):

• This is a tractor-mounted machine that basically cuts and lifts the standing stubble, drills the wheat seeds into the bare soil, and deposits the straw over the sown area as a mulch cover. The THS not only dispenses with the need for burning residue, but actually allows wheat to be planted even on fields containing straw.
• Moreover, the time savings are huge. Stubble burning causes moisture loss. So, the farmer has to give one irrigation and wait for seven or eight days until the field has the right amount of moisture. After that, he has to undertake ploughing through two rounds of disc harrow, cultivator and planking operations. Only on this finely-prepared seedbed can wheat sowing take place. But with THS, you can harvest paddy and sow wheat the same day.
• The THS, however, had a problem because it couldn’t take care of the loose straw harvested by the combine. This residue — as opposed to the standing stubble — has to be uniformly spread on the field to enable efficient sowing of wheat. For this, PAU has developed a Super-Straw Management System (S-SMS), which is an attachment that can be fitted on any combine harvester. The S-SMS ensures that the loose straw thrown by the combine is also cut and spread evenly on the field. The concurrent use of THS and S-SMS technology appears to be the best bet for the moment.

By: Vishal