Healthy seedlings for bountiful crops

India is a land of farmers and with increasing population the biggest challenge the nation faces today is to produce maximum food with minimum land and facilities. To meet the challenge, Anuradha Lakka Raju, who has won many awards for her contribution in the field of agriculture, now plans to take a step forward to make it easy for the farmers to reap better yields from their crops. In a nursery that is spread in about 6 acers of land, Anuradha grows all varieties of crops. Good quality seeds give good yields is what she puts in all her energies for.

It was a decade ago that she saw farmers going to Bengaluru and Pune for quality seeds and it was then that she decided to see what was so special in those seeds and learn the process of growing healthy seedlings herself. Thus was born a nursery of her own – Sneha Nursery.

What they basically do is to sow seeds of good quality and make sure that the plants have healthy and strong stem and dense roots. These are later directly transplanted in the fields, which saves money and time of the farmer. "Direct sowing of the seeds causes seed loss and damage to the crop. Opting for the hybrid seed is costlier and germination process is sort of poor as the temperature and humidity in the atmosphere plays a major role in the growing of plants." To save the farmers time and efforts, they produce healthy seedlings that can directly be sowed in the farms. "To make these crops healthy there are a lot of things that are taken care of, such as, good quality of water, which has EC and PH in control, Poly houses to maintain the humidity, Insect nets to prevent the plants from pest attack," she adds. All these factors are taken care of to produce a healthy plant with strong stem and dense roots. These seedlings are ready to be transplanted into the farms. With this technique, a farmer can yield four crops a year. They can order the next crop even before they harvest the existing crop. This is also cost effective as it reduces labour charges and saves time, says Anuradha.