Agricultural Practices and Animal Husbandry

We also eat leaves and stem of spinach and plenty of fruits. Thus, human beings depend on plants and animals for food. 32. 2 AGRICULTURE AND AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES The branch of science which deals with methods of food production is known as agriculture. Besides studying the new methods of food production, in this branch of science we also study about how new and better varieties of crops can be grown, how animals and birds like cows, hens, etc. can be reared well and made to give more milk or better quality eggs?All these new methods which scientists develop come under agricultural practices. We need vegetables, fruits, cereals, pulses, etc. as food. For our clothes, we need the fibre of plants or animals. We get all these foods and fibres by farming or agriculture. ACTIVITY 32. 1 Make a list of things which you use every day. Categorise those items which you get directly or indirectly from agriculture. Does your list look like the one given below? For easy reading, agricultural pro ducts have been divided into the following groups as given in the table 32.1. Table 32. 1: Various categories of food items Examples Sorghum (Jowar), Ragi (finger millet) and Bajra (pearl millet) Arhar (Tur), Black gram (Urad), Green gram (Moong), and Bengal gram (Channa) Beans Peas, Soyabean, Cowpea, Lentil Oilseeds Mustard, Groundnut, Soyabean, Sunflower, Linseed, Castor and Cotton seed Root crops Carrot, Turnip, Sweet potato Tuber crops Potato, Tapioca, Ginger and Turmeric Sugar crops Sugarcane and Beet root Plantation crops Coffee, Tea, Rubber and Coconut Category Millets Pulses 32.3 HORTICULTURE Did you observe that something is missing from the list of food items which we eat every day. What is it that we have not listed here in table 32. 1? Yes, we have neither included vegetables nor fruits in this list. Vegetables and fruits are essential items of our diet and their growth and production are studied under a branch of agriculture called horticulture. Horticulture is derived from two latin words: hortus which means garden, and culture which means cultivation. : 288 : Agricultural Practices and Animal HusbandryThe branch of agriculture that deals with growing and production of vegetables, fruits, ornamental plants and management of orchards is called horticulture. Horticulturists research to find new ways by which better varieties of fruits and vegetables can be grown in large quantities. 32. 4 STEPS IN RAISING IMPROVED AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE To increase our food production we can sow good quality seeds and improve the methods of sowing. We can make the soil more rich and even use better techniques for harvesting the crops.Some of the agricultural practices which scientists have developed and which our farmers have started are explained here. 1. Preparation of soil This is an important practice which helps to enrich the soil and make it more fertile and aerated. It involves addition of manure followed by turning, loosening and levelling of the soil, using agricultural implements like spade, plough or mechanical farm implements. 2. Seed treatment Seeds can easily be attacked by micro-organisms. The crops that grow out of diseased seeds will also be unhealthy.So farmers treat these seeds by dipping them in certain chemicals like cerosan or agrosan. These chemicals do not allow the microorganisms to attack the seeds and damage them. Such chemicals are called Fungicides. Once the seeds are treated, they can be sown. 3. Preparing the seed bed and care of the seedlings In certain crop plants like paddy and some of the vegetables, seeds are not sown directly in the main field. First these seeds are sown in a nursery bed. Once they grow to a certain age they are transferred and planted in the main field. These small plants are called seedlings.When the farmers prepare a nursery bed they take care of the following: †¢ The soil of the bed should be soft and loose so that the tender roots of the seedlings can grow well. This can be achieve d by digging or ploughing the field well. †¢ The seed bed or where the seedlings are planted should be even so that when we water the plants, the water distributes itself uniformly all over the field. †¢ All weeds or unwanted plants in the field must be removed. Do you know why? It is because these weeds also take water and nutrients from the soil and as a result the desired plants cannot get enough of the nutrients.The seedlings also need to be protected from diseases and pests. This is done by spraying chemicals like Parathion, Sevin, Dimecron and Rogor on the seedlings. 4. Transplanting The process of removing the seedlings from the nursery bed and planting them in the main field is called transplanting. When we transplant, we must select those seedlings which have 4 to 5 healthy Agricultural Practices and Animal Husbandry : 289 : leaves. These are sowed at proper distance from each other. The main field must be ploughed and manured before transplanting.Generally rice a nd vegetables like tomato and brinjal are sown by transplanting. Transplanting of seedlings is a very important practice. This enables us to select good and healthy seedlings and get a better crop. Besides, when we transplant seedlings, their roots are able to go deep into the soil and get more nutrients. When seedlings get good food, they grow into healthy plants and give a better yield. 5. Adding fertilizers Crops need nutrients like phosphorus, calcium, nitrogen etc. for their growth and pick up these nutrients from the soil.It is very important to add fertilizers to the soil. They provide nutrients to the soil and help to obtain a better crop yield. Depending on the type of soil and the crop to be grown, we use different fertilizers. The way we use a fertilizer also depends upon what type of fertilizer is being added to the soil. A fertilizer which contains nitrogen (nitrogenous fertilizer) is generally given in two or three doses. Other fertilizers are phosphatic and complex fe rtilizers. Some fertilisers are added to the soil before transplanting. You must have heard about the most commonly used fertilizer ‘NPK’.The letter N stands for nitrogen, P for phosphate and K for potassium. While fertilizers are manufactured from chemicals in factories, manure is made from organic substances and contains nutrients in small quantities. Some of the commonly used manure are: Farmyard manure, as the name suggests is a mixture of decomposed cattle dung (excreta) and urine, left over fodder (cattle feed) and litter (bedding provided to cattle in the farm). Compost is manure made from vegetable and animal refuse collected from domestic waste, straw, weeds etc. , dumped in a deep pit to decompose.Vermicompost is compost broken down by earthworms. Like fertilizers manures too add nutrients to soil. 6. Use of plant growth regulators Plant growth regulators are certain chemicals which regulate the growth of plants. All plants have growth regulators which determi ne how tall the plant would be, how big its fruit will be, etc. We can now add some plant growth regulators like auxins, gibberellins, cytokinins, abscisic acid etc. to get a better yield of crops. You will learn more about these plant growth regulators in higher classes.7. Irrigation Irrigation is necessary for proper development of plants. Roots fail to develop and penetrate in the dry soil. The crop is irrigated according to its requirement and soil characteristics. Irrigation is essential during the seedling, flowering and grain filling stages of the crop. Rice crop needs standing water. : 290 : Agricultural Practices and Animal Husbandry 8. Harvesting Harvesting machines have now replaced the back breaking job of hand harvesting with the sickle and scythe. Harvesting machines cut or dig out the plant or its parts as required.The machines gather the plant parts, separate desired parts and eliminate parts not needed. Certain harvesting machines may even load the crop for transpor t. However, the above mentioned functions of harvesting machines depend on kind of crop, plant parts to be harvested, crop use, stage of maturity, etc. 32. 5 SOME OTHER DIFFERENT AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES 32. 5. 1 Rotation of crops If you stay in a village you must have seen that the wheat crop is planted during the month of November and harvested in March and April. The rice crop is planted in June-July and harvested in October and November.The land that lies fallow in between these two cereal crops, can be used by the farmers for sowing a leguminous crop at this time. A leguminous crop does not take as long as wheat or rice to grow. So by the time the farmer has to plant the cereal crops (rice, wheat etc. ) the pulse is ready to be harvested. Leguminous crops include pea, beans, grams and pulses. They harbour nitrogen fixing bacteria in nodules of their roots (Fig. 32. 1). These bacteria convert free nitrogen from atmosphere into usable form. Thus, after the leguminous crop is harves ted, the soil is left fertile for other crops.The process of growing a different crop preferably a leguminous crop in between raising of two similar crops is called rotation of crops. Fig. 32. 1 Nitrogen fixing bacteria in the root nodules Crop rotation has a lot of benefits, (i) the land gets utilized, (ii) the pulse crop uses up different nutrients from the soil but it fixes the nitrogen from the air and makes the soil richer in nitrogen and so more fertile. This way the next cereal crop gives a better yield. If we do not practice crop rotation by growing different crops on a piece of land, butcontinue to grow the same crop, year after year, they will keep on using the same nutrients from the soil till all the nutrients in the soil get used up. The newly grown plants get poor nourishment from the soil and grow up to be weak and of bad quality. When plants are weak the insects can easily attack them and destroy them. Thus, crop rotation restores the fertility of Agricultural Practi ces and Animal Husbandry : 291 : the soil, it gives better yield, prevents crop from diseases and pests and reduces the dependence on chemical fertilizers.Multiple cropping Growing two to four crops one after the other in a year in the same field is called multiple cropping. Multiple cropping is possible, when we make use of crop varieties that grow for a short period of time. However, to get best results there must be a properly managed field. In fact, multiple cropping is the best solution for a country with food problem because same piece of land is used to grow different kinds of crops. ACTIVITY 32. 2 Here is something you can do. Visit a nearby agricultural farm or vegetable garden.Observe and note down the agricultural practices being used there. All the above mentioned practices are meant to ensure that plants have a healthy growth and yield a good crop. Along with these developments in our country we have also brought under cultivation more and more land. The increased culti vation of agricultural crops is in order to meet requirements of a growing population. 32. 5. 3 Improving the variety of seeds You must have often heard or read advertisements which encourage farmers to buy new and better varieties of seeds.Some of these new varieties are resistant to diseases and give a very good crop. Some of the improved high-yielding crop varieties which our scientists have developed are given in table 32. 2. Table 32. 2 Improved high-yielding varieties of crops Crop Rice Wheat Maize Lady’s finger (Bhindi) Brinjal Variety I R-8, Jaya, Padma, Bala Sarbati sonara, Sonalika, Kalyan sona, Hira-moti, RR-21 and UP 301 Ganga 101, Rankit and Deccan hybrid Pusa savani Pusa purple, Pusa kranti and Muktabeshi Do you know what name is given to scientists who develop such new varieties of seeds?They are called plant breeders. Plant breeders have not only raised better quality seeds but also better quality fruits. Mango has been named the ‘king of fruits’ and in our country we grow many varieties of mangoes. Some of them are Alphonse, Langra, Chausa, Saroli, Dussehri, Himsagar, Safeda, Sinduri, Mulgoba, Amini. 32. 6 PROTECTION OF CROPS IN THE FIELD As crops grow in the field, they have to be protected such that they produce a healthy yield. The weeds growing along with crops have to be removed and growing crops have to be saved from the attack of pests especially insects pests.