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Have you ever heard of sapling trees with only 1 litre of water?

Yes, you read it right. This unrealistic idea has been brought to reality by Mr. Sundaram Verma who lives in Danta village, 50 km from Sikar district in Rajasthan which has extreme climatic conditions and depleted rainfall pattern (25 to 50cm per year). He has always been inclined towards science and systematic agriculture practices. He used to attend various training programs at agriculture universities and research stations to learn about the new processes and practices in agriculture. In a training program at Indian Agricultural Research Institute (Delhi), he learnt about the role of the capillary movement of water in causing loss of subsurface water through evaporation and the effect of weeds in loss of soil moisture. Results from experiments (that he performed on his farm) made him realize that below a depth of 30cm, the soil has sufficient moisture for the survival of the plants provided there is breaking up of the capillary movement, and there is control of weed growth. Also, deeper penetrating roots of transplanted seedlings facilitated tapping sufficient moisture from the deep soil.

The Technique used by him follows:-

Steps for planting Saplings with only one litre of water:

1.) Field/ Site selection is done before the monsoon and it is levelled to prevent rain water runoff.

2.) 15 days after the first rain, carry out one or two deep ploughings to facilitate percolation of water and removal of weeds.

3.)10-15 days before the last rain deep plough or dig.

4.) As soon as rains end, make a small bed about one foot deep in the centre of the field. Bring healthy saplings about a Year old and one foot high from the nursery and put them in the previously prepared deep bed. (Water the saplings adequately for 1-2 days before planting them in the field.

5.) Plant the sapling in the pit after removing polyethylene bag in such a way that all the roots remain in the soil at 20-30 cm below the surface. Cover the soil up to about 5-10 cm and leave the top space of about 10-15 cm empty for watering. The entire operation, from digging the pit to planting seedlings, should be finished in a few minutes so as to minimize the moisture loss.

6.) Immediately water the seedlings with about one litre of water once and leave the seedling to grow on its own without any additional water or any other input except weeding.

This method of dry land forestry has resulted in 80-90% survival rate of saplings with just 1L of water.

Apart from dry land afforestation, Sundaram Verma has been actively involved in water conservation for farming practices. He has gained recognition for his work at various forums at regional, state and National level by various bodies.

Story told by :- Rishabh dev Mishra

Story posted on 17 July 2020