‘আত্মা’বার্তা
Success
story
TS-36, a toria variety likely to boost farmers’
income in Margherita Block of Tinsukia district
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| A view of Toria field |
Jagun
is a small township of Tinsukia District bordering Arunachal Pradesh in the
East and Nagaland in the South-East. People living in this part of the district
belong to various cast, creed and community. However, all of them are predominantly
farmers cultivating a number of field and horticultural crops. Being situated
at the foot hill of Arunachal and Nagaland, land of Jagun area is very much
fertile. River Dihing and a number of small streams encourage farmers to adopt agriculture
as a profitable venture.
Sri
Gopal Chetri is a progressive farmer of 3no. Rampur village under Jagun Gaon
Panchayat. He has a small piece of land measuring about 15 bighas where rice,
maize, toria, summer and winter vegetables are grown. Toria is an important oil
seed crop that farmers grow in Jagun. Sri
Chetri has a sizeble area under toria. However, the yield that he harvests with
local as well as improved variety M-27 is not very encouraging. So, he was
looking for a suitable toria variety to replace old varieties.
During the BFAC meeting of Margherita Block,
Sri Chetri was identified as probable beneficiary for demonstrating a new high
yielding toria variety. Accordingly, BTT members visited the site and selected
him as beneficiary. The team also met other farmers of the village and
enlightened them about ATMA and the objective of the demonstration to be
conducted in the village. For that a daylong training was also organized in the
village. All the farmers participated in the training programme showed keen
interest on ATMA and its objectives.
TS-36
is a new high yielding toria variety developed by RARS, Shillongoni, Nagaon.
The variety showed good performance in some other parts the district. Hence, it
was decided to introduce TS-36 in Rampur village. By middle of October, seeds
were collected from BNCA, AAU, and along with other inputs provided to the farmer.
Seeds were sown in the first week of November. Soil moisture retained after
tillage operation helps in uniform seed germination. As the season progress,
BTM and SMS monitored the field activities frequently. Officers from the
district HQ along with scientist from KVK, Tinsukia also visited the site and
provide necessary guidance. For timely advice, contact number of KVK scientist
was also provided to the farmer.
After
three months of sowing, the crop was ready to harvest. During this period, the
crop received two light showers. BTT visited the site and decided to organize a
Field Day at 3no.Rampur villager. Accordingly, a Field Day was organized in the
site on 9th February, 2013 where about 60 farmers from four
neighboring villages assembled. A joint field visit was made in the
demonstration site where officers from district HQ and KVK also took part. All
the farmers were happy with the crop stand, per plant pod number as well as pod
size of TS-36. Ceremonial harvesting was done in three plots, each measuring
5mx5m. It was observed that on an average 2.8 kg seed was recorded in 25 sqm
plot which is equivalent to 150 kg per bigha or 11.2 q per hectre. This yield was about 1.5 times more than the
neighboring plot of M-27. Sri Gopal Chetry and fellow farmers expressed their
satisfaction over the yield performance of TS-36.
After
the joint field visit, Sri Chetry spoke about the production technology that he
had adopted. He was highly grateful to the team member of ATMA for all the help
and guidance. The village head, who preside over the meeting, opined that for
overall development of Rampur and other neighboring villages farmers had to adopt
new technologies developed in the field of agriculture and allied sectors. He
asked farmers to collect seed of TS-36 for the next crop season. Altogether 42
farmers registered their name as probable growers of TS-36 in the coming rabi
season. Later, field staff reported that one liter oil could be extracted from
2.7 kg TS-36 seed while to get the same quantity of oil 3.2 kg M-27 seed was
required.
It
is now expected that in the coming season more farmers will grow toria variety
TS-36 in Jagun panchayat and reap the benefit of it.
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| Sri Gopal Chetri with Dy. Project Director and Block Convener |
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| On the day of Field Day |
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| On the day of Field Day |
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| A section of villagers |
