CCPUR, November 13: A team of officials of Agriculture Dept of Churachandpur under the leadership of District Agriculture Officer (DAO) RK Dorenchand collected crop specimens from a paddy field located at Khomoi village which is about 3 km from Lamka for contesting at the district level crop competition.
The DAO said the rice sample that was packed in a one kg polythene bag will be sent to ICAR who will be examining the quality of the rice in their laboratory and grade it according to which the prize winning crop will be determined.
The eventual winner in the district level crop competition will automatically qualify for the state level crop competition. The result is expected to be out after the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) scientifically verifies the quality of rice product, at their state of the art laboratory.
The winner in the crop competition will be awarded with a Kobuta engine (tractor) the second with a Mechanical Harvester while the third will get a pump set. For the competition 75 farmers from CCpur have applied out of which ten were selected on the basis of the quality of their work/product.
The competing crop of today is a brand of rice call KD-263 or Leimaphou which is the product of Systematic Rice Intensification(SRI). On counting it was found that a single panicle that are planted in todays visited paddy field had multiplied to at least 25 stem/head due to SRI technique
For today gathering of crop for the competition, a field of 10 sq meter was harvested which yield 86.2 kg out of which one kg was pack for the competition, and sealed for dispatching it to ICAR . On the sideline of the competition the department had experiment with a stow weighing 3kg which produce 1.2 kg of rich that, expert opined ,is a good indication of the success of scientific and systematic cultivation in CCpur.
One of the ten selected farmers from 75 participants Thangfal said that he was grateful to the dept of agricultural particularly the DAO, who had been posted in Ccpur from March 2013 only, but had change the agriculture production/output through his hard work and dedication. He said that the D27 which will be planted after the paddy harvesting this year had been offered to them now which in the past year are offer to them earliest by December. He further said that they are getting fertilizer at a subsidized rate of Rs 280 per bag which is the one of the contributory factors for the success of crop and is the result of the initiative undertaken by the DAO CCpur.
The DAO informed that they are now ready to distribute another variety of paddy called D-27 which will be distributed after the end of paddy harvest and they are now making examination for selection of sincere farmers.
It may be recalled that the Agriculture Dept of CCpur had supported and aided 260 hectare of paddy field in the district which are divided into clusters. As reported in IFP earlier, Dorenchand said that the competition is the product of scientific method that had been infused to the farmers in the district during the past seven months which had yielded a good result and the fact that they are participating in crop- competition is a positive sign in itself.