Remote control for irrigation pump

I don't have a house in the farm at this time. Therefore I am living in a place few kms away from the farm. Karnataka state (my farm is in Karnataka) had been producing far less electric power than the demand. Therefore power companies take a easy route - stop power to villages to supply power to towns and cities. Power shutdown in villages is very common. Scheduled power shutdown is at least for 6 hours in a day. There can be more power shutdown depending on situation like less water availability in hydro power generation stations, less water availability for thermal power generation stations etc. during summer months when the electricity need peaks (for cooling and irrigation). Also there is this practice of "single phasing" (meaning one or two phases are disconnected or too low voltage is provided) during day time to prevent running 3 phase irrigation pumps. Because of these reasons it is possible to run irrigation pumps only during night time for few hours when the electricity supply is available and stable. This situation makes it very difficult to irrigate the farm for people living away from farm like me. It is a major hassle to walk to the pump house in the night to operate the pump even for people living close to the farm or in the farm. There are also instances of people dying of snake bite when they went to the farm in the night to operate the irrigation pump!

What is the solution to this problem? I thought of 2 possibilities:

1. Sun is far more reliable than anything else in this part of the world. Use the Sun, install a solar pump. It runs only during day time when Sun is shining bright. That works very well for irrigation pump.
2. Have some way to operate the pump remotely when there is power in the farm.

Solar pump solution does not work for me because solar panels can be stolen or damaged by miscreants since there is nobody living in the farm at this time to protect the panels. Therefore solar pump is not feasible option for me. Only way I can operate the pump is through some kind of remote control.

First thought coming to mind to solve this problem is running the pump using a timer. This timer needs to be little intelligent to run the pump for specified duration even when there are power interruptions in between. For example - if I set the timer to run for 10 minutes, it should remember to run the pump for remaining duration of 4 minutes if the power shuts down when the pump has run for 6 minutes. It is not difficult to have such an implementation. However, there is one problem here. I may not want to run the pump for a fixed duration every day. For example - I may want to irrigate more on the previous day if I am traveling out of town for a day or two. Then the pump has to run for extra duration that day. Another example - I may not want to run the pump for a day or two when there is some rain. Summary is - fixed timer based pump controller is not flexible; it is not practical.

I need an implementation where I can decide how long to run the pump on any day/time or even not to run the pump on any given day/time. Call it "on-demand" remote pump switch. It should be like a remote control to control the pump from anywhere. That means I need some kind of wireless communication to the pump controller.

SIM900 module I bought off Amazon

Thanks to GSM mobile phone technology, anybody can have wireless communication today. I decided to use a GSM module for wireless communication. A GSM module is a cell phone signal transceiver with serial communication interface for programming it through a micro processor. For micro processor I used a Raspberry Pi gifted to me by some engineering students when I helped them as their final year project guide. Instead of buying a new micro processor I decided to use Raspberry Pi which was lying around idle. Pi is an overkill for this application. I will buy Arduino nano If I have to buy a micro processor for this.

I bought a SIM900 module, relay board, a power relay (10A @ 250V) to switch the pump on/off, and 5V 2A power supply online. I added a 12V transformer for supplying power to GSM module. Hooked up Tx and Rx pins of SIM900 module to Rx and Tx pins of Raspberry Pi (Tx of GSM module goes to Rx of Pi and Rx of GSM module goes to Tx of Pi). I added some circuits soldered on a general purpose PCB to detect over voltage and under voltage to stop the pump if the voltage goes above or below certain levels. Programmed Pi using Python language to process messages sent to GSM module. In the program I baked in intelligence to work around power interruptions to ensure pump runs for the specified duration. Bought an electric switch board container box to house the whole thing. Drilled some holes on it for ventilation (obviously all the electronic stuff generates some amount of heat which should be dissipated). Popped in a SIM in the SIM holder of GSM module. This is how it looks when completely wired up. People with some electronics knowledge can make out which board is what. Please feel free to ask if you need any more information about the controller.

Pump controller as installed in the farm

Conversation between my cell phone and pump controller

This is a sample of conversation between my cell phone and the pump controller. Don't bother sending messages (if you can somehow figure out the complete cell number of pump SIM card) to hack into my pump controller, it won't work because I have programmed the controller to take messages from specific phone numbers only :-) Messages from other phone numbers are ignored and deleted. Controller has been tested under field conditions to ensure it works fine. There were some hiccups initially. I added a USB storage device to Raspberry Pi for collecting logs from the application. Logs were used for debugging the code running inside Pi. Controller had been running reliably from Oct/Nov-2015.

Next step to this is having moisture sensors in the farm to decide when the plants need water and turn the pump on/off as per needs of the plant. That will be a dream come true because then the plants will be watered automatically whenever they need water.

Update on 22-Sep-2016:

Pump controller had a major problem after being operational for around 7-8 months (excluding the monsoon months when I had switched it off). Yesterday evening I switched the pump on for 2 hours  to irrigate growing paddy crop. Pump controller responded with messages when it switched the pump on and 2 hours later when it switched the pump off. However, I was surprised to see the water flowing through the pipe when I visited the farm today morning. Pump had been running for last 16 hours! Further investigation showed that the relay used for switching the pump on/off had failed in permanently closed position. In fact relay contacts got welded in on position keeping it on irrespective of on/off indications coming from the controller.

Why did it happen? Simple - pump is an inductive load. Theoretically pump winding offers very low resistance to current flow when the pump is not running - called inrush current. Therefore very high current flows through the windings for a moment until the pump picks up speed. After that current flow through the pump drops to normal running current. Therefore a surge of power flows through the relay contacts when the relay contacts close to switch the pump on. According to some estimates momentary current (ampere-age) when the pump is switched on is up to 10 times the normal running current. Another surge runs through the contacts when switching off the pump because of back EMF (I am not sure whether it holds good for AC motors). These very high momentary currents cause arcing. That can either cause welding or decaying/wearing off of relay contacts. Unfortunately my relay contacts got welded in permanently on position. Fortunately I found it soon, by next morning, before the motor was killed!

What is the solution? Use something to absorb the surge. Either varistors or capacitors or a capacitor/resistor network (suitable values calculated to match the load) called snubber network is used across the relay contacts to absorb the surge. I knew it is needed. But did not use it because I thought relay can handle the surge from my motor because normal running current of my motor is around 3 amps and the relay is rated for 10 amps. Obviously relay rating was not enough, I should have used heavier relay.

Unfortunately I don't have access to much heavier electro-mechanical relays. Instead of heavier relay I could have used a snubber network. But I don't know the inductance of the motor to calculate the snubber network component values. Therefore I decided to try the SSR (solid state relay) I had in my collection. I have Autonix brand SSR rated @ 40 amps. It has a built-in snubber network. I assumed it takes care of some surges at least, though it is not calculated to match the surge from the motor I have. I connected the relay, switched on the pump and the relay failed within few seconds! I had another one. Removed the failed one and connected the new SSR - that survived for several minutes but produced lot of heat. Message on the relay package reads "External heat sink is needed for currents more than 3 amps." I don't like to add a crown (heat sink) on top of my controller. Therefore I dropped the idea of using SSR (solid state relay) for pump controller.

What is next? There are devices called "contactors". These are like relay but much bigger and heavy duty with heavy connector points. I have ordered a contactor online and waiting for it to arrive. Let us see how the contactor does :-)

Power backup

I am living in a village after deciding to move out of city and buying the farm. Apart from being a farmer, I am still a software architect too. Every day I spend almost half a day on software projects. Therefore I need reliable electricity supply. Being a village there are some challenges for electric power. This post provides information about how I solved the problem. Please note - I don't have any affiliation or any relationship whatsoever to any brands I mention in this post. I am describing what I did to solve my problem hoping that will help someone with similar challenges.

As you know cities get major share of electric power. Villages are the most neglected places by the power sector. We have 6 hours scheduled power shutdown in this village. Apart from that power may go and return at any time - that is unscheduled. Mains voltage may vary anywhere between 170 to 240 V. Electric power is unreliable here. That is why I need a power backup. I ended up buying a lead acid battery backed inverter for power. General tendency is to buy some inverter and battery combination recommended by the dealer. Some dealers push whatever is best for them (who pays them more commission), not for the customer. Therefore I did my home work to decide which one to buy.

When it comes to large storage battery for the inverter currently available options are lead acid battery and Nickel Iron battery (also called as Ni-Fe battery or Edison battery - named after the inventor Thomas Edison). Almost all the batteries you have seen in an inverter installation are lead acid batteries (either a flat plate battery, tubular battery, tall tubular battery, absorbed glass mat or gel). Lead acid batteries are very toxic; both lead and sulfuric acid in the battery are toxic substances. Lead acid batteries need lot of careful maintenance and don't last more than 5-6 years even with best maintenance. Compared to this Nickel Iron batteries are less toxic and last really long. Frequent deep cycling does not damage Nickel Iron batteries. Nickel Iron batteries can last several decades. There is a study done on almost a century old Nickel Iron batteries indicating they are still working well! Looking at that Nickel Iron battery is the winner. But there are challenges in using Nickel Iron batteries. Lead acid and Nickel Iron battery charging and discharging characteristics are very different. All our mass market equipment are designed to run with lead acid batteries, not Nickel Iron batteries. Therefore if I decide to use Nickel Iron battery I will have to design and fabricate a special inverter for working with Nickel Iron battery. Another challenge with Nickel Iron batteries is difficulty of sourcing them. There are very few manufacturers and sellers of Nickel Iron batteries because of low demand. It will remain a maintenance nightmare even if I import few pieces of Nickel Iron batteries. Therefore practically only viable option was only one - some kind of lead acid battery. Tall tubular type is the choice out of flat plate, tubular, tall tubular, gel, and absorbed glass mat type lead acid batteries because tall tubular are the most widely used ones. My goal now is to make sure this battery I buy lasts as long as practically possible so that I don't need to throw another 15-20 thousand rupees for another heavy box of toxin [ unfortunately that is what a lead acid battery is :-( ]

Once it was a given that I have to live with a tall tubular lead acid battery I had to find an inverter which does the best job of charging the battery for longest battery life. I had a 6 year old Su-Kam brand Sturdy-i model inverter. This inverter has served me well so far. However this inverter does not consider fine variations between different lead acid battery types charging and discharging characteristics. Therefore it cannot maximize the battery life.

Another challenge is battery charging voltage vs. battery temperature. As the temperature rises battery electrolyte becomes more conductive. Therefore lower charging voltage should be used at higher temperatures and higher charging voltage should be used at lower temperatures. Any inverter not taking battery temperature into consideration for charging the battery will under charge the battery in winter and over charge the battery in summer. Both are damaging to the battery. That shortens battery life. Since my goal was maximizing battery life I wanted my inverter to adjust charging voltage according to battery temperature.

Once my requirements were clear, I spent some time on Google. I zeroed in on Su-Kam brand Falcon+ model inverter. Falcon+ has several innovations in it. You can set it to flat plate, tubular and tall tubular batteries to consider battery specific characteristics for charging/discharging. It also differentiates between a small size battery and large size battery (VA rating of the battery). Best thing about this inverter is - it reads battery temperature to decide battery charging voltage. This inverter also has ability to play well with solar charge controllers. I am planning to go completely off-grid when I build my farm house. This inverter implements 6 stage charging technology (de-sulphation, soft start charging, bulk charging, absorption charging, equalization, and float charging) controlled by a microprocessor. I believe this is the best inverter technology available in India at this moment. I have couploed a 200 AH tall tubular battery (60 months warranty) to this inverter. This gives me more than one full day autonomy for one wireless router, a desktop with LED monitor, 2-3 10-15 W LED bulbs (only in the evening), and 2-3 hours of a DTH receiver & 34 inch LED TV.

Irrigation

Long term goal of our farm is to build a self sustaining food forest. We planted few hundred saplings in our farm as a step towards that. Though the plants become self sustaining after few years, they need watering in the initial few years until their roots go deep and wide enough to provide them moisture during dry summer months (Feb/Mar - Jun).

We decided to install drip irrigation to conserve water. We placed 1000 liter water tank at the highest point in the farm and ran drip irrigation lines to the plants from the tank. Now comes the challenge of pumping water into the tank from the well.

Pond? Nope, it is a well!

Luckily previous owner of our farm had installed a 5 HP irrigation pump connected to a 30+ year old irrigation well. Well .. well, it does not look like a well any more because the soil from the sides has collapsed into the well in so many years and created a pond. Very soon we will convert it to a proper well - stay tuned for that. We had electricity connection too for the irrigation pump. By the way electricity is free for agriculture purpose in this state. This pump previous owner had installed was a low head (meaning cannot generate lot of pressure to pump water to higher altitudes) pump. That pump could not deliver water to the tank which was easily 50-60 ft above the water level in the well. We told RIP to the old pump, disconnected it and left it in its place. We bought a 1 HP V-Guard pump capable of throwing water to a height of 100 ft. It sucks water through a 32 mm diameter pipe and pushes it out through a 32 mm pipe. We buried approximately 500 ft long PVC pipe from the pump to the tank. From there we laid one main line through one section of the farm to water the plants.

Old pump house

Then I connected 16 mm HDPE drip line to take water to the plants from the main line. this 16 mm line runs to almost all the plants. You may say I could have run 12 mm pipes to the plants for cost cutting (obviously 12 mm pipe costs less than 16 mm pipe for the same length). There are less chances of the pipe clogging with debris in water if the pipe is wider - therefore 16 mm is less hassle compared to 12 mm. I decided to go with 16 mm all over because there is no considerable cost difference for the length of pipe we need.

Next important thing in drip irrigation is - emitter. Emitter is the thing which emits water from the drip line to the plants. Emitters are important because they should provide reliable delivery of water to the plants. You know what happens if water is not delivered to the plants properly - yes, they wilt and die. Many shops in my town sell only cheapo unreliable emitters. After quite a bit of search I found Jain 4.2 lph (liters per hour) turbo key pressure compensated emitters. That is the right stuff for our farm because:

• Jain is a known name in irrigation - we are less likely to go wrong with Jain equipment.
• 4.2 liters per hour is right kind of discharge for orchard crops - that is what we have in our farm.
• Turbo key emitter has arrangement to open and clean it when it is clogged with debris from water. Jain sells a key to open it. I open it with God gifted equipment - my hands!
• Pressure compensation is important for our farm because our farm is not flat terrain. From top to bottom of planted area there is at least 10-15 ft. elevation difference. Without pressure compensation plants lower below get more water and the ones at higher elevation get less water because of pressure difference. With pressure compensation we get uniform water delivery (within specified pressure range and manufacturing error in the pressure compensation mechanism within emitters).

Close-up of the emitter on the drip line

Total cost of this project came to approximately 30,000 Rs. Mostly one time cost like pump, pipe line etc. With this setup plants are happy and we are happy too because plants are happy :-D. You may be thinking that is a recursive statement!

Our inspiration

These are the people, organizations and resources who inspired us to think of leaving the city - farming as a way to live healthier, independent, self sustainable life. If you want more information please run a Google search on them, they have loads of information and several YouTube videos available on the web.

• Bhaskar Save: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaskar_Save
• Subhash Palekar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhash_Palekar
• Rajiv Dixit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajiv_Dixit
• Kailash Murthy: https://www.google.co.in/search?q=kailash+murthy
• Raju Titus: https://www.google.co.in/search?q=raju+titus
• Geoff Lawton: http://geofflawton.com/
• Bill Mollison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Mollison
• Masanobu Fukuoka: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka
• Deep Green Permaculture: http://deepgreenpermaculture.com/
• Farmer's Handbook: http://permaculturenews.org/2010/01/06/farmers-handbook/
• Permaculture News: http://permaculturenews.org/

Internet in a remote place

I am living in a village after deciding to move out of city and buying the farm. Apart from being a farmer, I am still a software architect too. I spend almost half a day on software projects. Therefore I need reliable internet service. There are some challenges for internet service in a village. This post provides information about how I solved the problem. Please note - I don't have any affiliation to any brands I mention in this post. I am describing what I did to solve my problem hoping that will help someone with similar challenges.

BSNL is the only internet service provider who can connect a copper wire to homes when it comes to villages here. Catch is - BSNL lines don't work for most of the time in a year because by the time their service department fixes the line it again goes bad; more so during monsoon. That is why many people in these villages are phasing out copper line phones in favor of cell phones. Therefore I decided not to take BSNL copper line connection for internet.

Only option left after that decision was buying 3G/4G internet service. I studied signal strength of different service providers in the village. I used my cell phone for the signal strength study. My phone showed fairly strong 3G signal from Airtel during the study (4G has not started yet, so only 3G for now though SIM is 4G). That is why I rented out the home in the village and moved in. I use a wifi router with 3G/4G USB dongle support (D-Link DWR-116 model). When I installed my 4G dongle (Huawei E-3276 model) with Airtel 4G SIM it did not show any 3G/4G signal even on the roof top. I was disappointed with the situation because I had already moved into a beautiful home in the village, but no internet in that place :-(

Being an engineer by nature (and by training - I am a structural engineer), I was not going to give up so easily. Nearest 3G tower from the village is 6 kms away. There was no way tiny 2-3 cm long antenna in the dongle could transmit signal up to 6 kms of thick forest. I thought a good antenna setup will make it work. Some research on internet showed I can use a Yagi antenna. Yagi antenna (actually it is called Yagi Uda antenna because it is named after the inventors) is a directional antenna which is easy to design, fabricate and use. I was unable to use the designs from whirlpool website because matching boom and element materials were not available here. I used Yagi CAD and MMANA-GAL software to design and optimize the antenna for the material I got. I designed a fabricated 2 antennas - one with 4 mm diameter solid copper elements and another one with 9 mm aluminium pipe elements. Here is one my antennas in action:

4 mm copper wire element antenna

3G band is essentially UMTS technology. According to wikipedia page frequency range of UMTS 2100 band used in Asia is - 1920-1980 MHz for uplink and 2110-2170 MHz for downlink. Middle of frequency range is 2045 MHz. Antenna is designed for this middle frequency. In the absence of any more authentic information I took that as the design frequency for the antenna. Antenna element lengths should be accurate to fraction of a millimeter. I ended up buying a vernier caliper for the purpose of measuring the elements when cutting them.

3G/4G USB dongle enclosed in a box

My 3G/4G dongle (Huawei E-3276 model) has CRC-9 type connectors for connecting antenna. I bought 2 numbers of CRC-9 to F-female connector adapters on ebay to connect the antenna to the dongle. CRC-9 connectors on the dongle are delicate. I enclosed the dongle in a box and brought out the F(female) connectors to avoid any damage in daily usage. I connected the antenna to dongle using a piece of 75 Ohms RG-6 cable (used for connecting DTH antenna to the set top box). I crimped a F connector to the end of the RG-6 wire connected to the dongle. This dongle uses only one antenna when connected to 3G. This dongle can boost the speed when connecting to 4G network using MIMO technology. For using MIMO we need to use 2 antennas mounted at 45 degree angle to vertical direction.

Dongle connection details

After connecting the antenna I got good internet speed. However, my happiness was short lived. After few minutes my dongle used to drop the connection and did not reconnect until I switched off the whole stuff and switched it on. What that means is power cycling was necessary to connect the dongle once it drops the connection. I struggled with it for quite some time. One day the bulb lighted - I thought probably dongle needs more power than the power provided by the USB port of the wifi router. More so because probably the dongle is trying to transmit stronger signals since it is working in a weak signal area. I scavenged a USB-female port from a USB hub. I soldered two separate USB cables (male part) to it - one for carrying the USB signals and another one exclusively for power. Instead of using power from the USB port of wifi router now I can power my dongle using a 5V 2A external power adapter. Bought a 5V 2A power adapter online and plugged it in. That solved connection drop problem all together!

Little bit more about the dongle connections: Two metal connectors you see in the picture above towards the left are CRC-9 connectors. Wires from those 2 connectors lead to the metal connectors on the lower side - which are two F(female) connectors for connecting F connectors on the end of RG-6 cable. Small piece of green circuit board towards the top is the board soldered to female USB port scavenged from a USB hub. That female USB port is plugged into the USB port of the dongle. There are two wires soldered to the circuit board. Thin wire is soldered to the data connectors of USB port. USB end of that wire goes into the USB port of the wifi router. Thick wire is soldered to the power connectors of the USB port. USB end of that wire goes to 5V 2A power adapter.

This is the speed measured now using speedtest.net. Connection is stable now though speed varies quite a bit. Isn't that a big improvement from "no internet" without the antenna?

Internet speed after connecting antenna and external power supply

You may ask what happens when Airtel begins 4G service in the town? Nothing - 3G will continue to work as long as Airtel transmits 3G signals. I will get 4G if I design, fabricate and connect a 4G antenna (which I am planning to do when 4G service begins). That's all!

Update on 10-Jul-2016:

Huawei E-3276 dongle started acting unstable for last few days and finally stopped working. It does not show any error when connected to computer. It shows very weak signal and fails to connect to service provider. Now I guess it is because of high humidity in the air since it had been raining heavily in this area for last few days.

My work needs internet connection. There was no time to order some device online and wait for several days for the delivery. I know service provider (Airtel) sells internet connection device because my friend has one. I borrowed that one for testing. I had a "wow" moment when I connected to it. It shows almost full strength 3G signal and provides stable internet connection if I place the device in first floor at a height - without any external antenna! Immediately I ran to the town and bought the device. It turned out to be Huawei-E5573s-606. Now I am using this device without any antenna. Yagi antenna that served me well for last 2 years is having well deserved rest now :-)

Farming plan

When I say "I bought a farm" first thing people ask is "What are you planning to grow there?" Some "experienced" farmers suggested me to clear the forest area and plant their favorite cash crops like areca, rubber etc. They also suggested me to fill up soil in the low lying paddy fields and plant the cash crops there too. Initially I tried explaining our philosophy of natural farming or permaculture - which many did not get or thought I have gone insane. This post is an effort to clearly document our philosophy and plans for the farm.

Custard apples harvested from the farm

Chemical intensive "modern agriculture" (so called) we are practicing today is depleting earth of its fertility and making it sterile. Heavy chemical usage combined with continuous pumping out of water stored deep under the earth has played havoc with water table. One problem is water table going down ever deeper and the other problem is whatever is there is polluted with chemicals leached down by the irrigation water. Some areas in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh in India are now pumping out water from 1000+ feet deep aquifers containing water stored during stone age. These aquifers cannot be recharged. That emergency storage is gone once they are emptied. You can imagine what will happen to these areas in next few years after the farmers run out of this water. No doubt we will end up with large deserts. Half century back average depth of water table in whole of India was not more than few tens of feet. Same land has faced disastrous consequences after "green revolution" promoted unscrupulous subsidized chemical usage and uncontrolled pumping out of water backed by free electricity supply for agricultural pumps.

A citrus fruit harvested from the farm

If we understand the seriousness of this problem and start thinking what is the solution we get the answer not too far away - we see it in any natural forest nearby (if you are lucky to see one nearby). Plants grow vigorously, healthy in any natural forest. Nobody puts chemical fertilizers. Nobody sprays pesticides. Plants of all varieties coexist and grow to reach the sky. In fact plants just want to grow because they start dying the moment they stop growing. That is why you see a plant seed fallen on a boulder or on roof of a building growing without any assistance. Problem begins when we start fiddling with the nature. That is why Masanobu Fukuoka says - incomplete human knowledge is the problem. Human knowledge about nature will remain incomplete because nature is very complex. The science we follow today is called reductionist science as it reduces the problem to very few parameters for the sake of study. But nature does not obey this reductionist approach. For example if you take growth of rice as a study subject, there are so many parameters like temperature, rain fall (intensity and timing of rain), sun light intensity, insects, bacterium in the soil interacting with the plant roots, oxygen and CO2 content in the air etc. Nuclear radiation absorbed by clouds passing over Fukushima nuclear disaster site may affect rice growth! Realistically, number of parameters is endless. There is no way a scientist can study the plant growth and yield keeping all these parameters and their continuous variations in view. Therefore scientist chooses handful of parameters to control them in a green house and studies them. But that reductionist view does not hold good in field where all parameters continuously vary. Therefore only way one can understand this complex nature to some extent is by carefully observing the nature itself. Masanobu Fukuoka developed his method of natural farming by observing the nature for several decades and after several failed attempts. Masanobu Fukuoka's book One Straw Revolution published in 1975 beautifully explains this.

Purists of non chemical philosophy are divided into philosophies of natural farming and permaculture. We don't consider organic farming for this discussion because one can use "approved" chemicals (some of which are toxic too) in approved quantities and still be certified organic! This kind of organic farming can damage earth as much as any kind of chemical farming does, if not more. Therefore we disagree with organic farming; it is not for us.

Little Ishaan (my son) on a cashew tree

Natural farming philosophy was promoted by Masanobu Fukuoka. Natural farming is what it literally means - allow nature to do its work with minimum human intervention. Human intervention is mainly in the form of harvesting the produce, returning excess to the nature and sowing the seeds of the plants useful for humans.

Permaculture is a term coined by Bill Mollison in 1978. Permaculture is derived from "permanent agriculture" or "permanent culture". For us "permanent agriculture" looks most appropriate. Permaculture also follows the principle of allowing nature to do its job. Permaculture is more methodical or formal than natural farming because usually there is a formal "design" process employed in case of permaculture. Permaculture design involves designing different zones and a pattern of companion plants to help each other.

Note: Bill Mollison and few others have tried to copyright/restrict usage of terms like "permaculture", "permaculture design" and "permaculture design course" in different ways. None of those attempts have been successful. Many applications to statutory/regulatory bodies have been either rejected or withdrawn by the applicant. As far as we know none of the terms related to permaculture are copyrighted or restricted.

Both these philosophies aim at preventing damage to the earth and reversing already done damage. We look at both of them as philosophies for healing the earth where humans help nature to do its best by reducing interference with nature. Both of them shun chemicals like plague. That is what we believe in very strongly - avoid all chemicals, allow nature to do its best. However, we are not purists.  Therefore we treat both natural farming and permaculture as twin children of mother earth. We don't differentiate between them. At the same time we don't mind using natural and non-toxic amendments like lime or micro nutrients when the soil really needs it. We may throw some cow dung manure at our vegetable beds once in a while if we feel the need for it. We may also use some mulch to suppress weeds when needed. Other than that we don't want to interfere with nature. We plan to keep farm animals like cows, dogs, chicken and water birds like ducks to work with nature. By the way, we already have 2 cows with calves and a puppy in our rented house waiting to enter the farm as soon as we construct a house and move into the farm. Our goal is to live a self sustaining life with minimum inputs and dependency on outside world. We will be able to live comfortable and happy life even if the worst kind of economic disaster strikes the world because we will be able to live without cash.

We want to develop a food forest in the forest area of the farm. Forest area has several native trees. You can imagine the number of trees if I say whole ground is covered with several inches thick leaf litter when those trees shed their leaves in winter. Soil is very fertile like in a forest because of these fallen leaves rotting down every year.

Thick layer of leaf litter on the ground

Several fruit trees like custard apple, mango, jack fruit, citrus and cashew are already in the farm.

In last monsoon we planted 3 varieties of guava, custard apple, 2 varieties of sapota, 5 varieties of mango, 5 varieties of citrus, 10 varieties of jack fruit, cinnamon, Indian sour cherry, Singapore cherry, nutmeg, bread fruit, mangosteen, lychee, fig, clove, pomegranate, and butter fruit saplings in approximately 8% of the area (92% more left to be planted!). Almost all the plants except clove have survived so far. This scorching summer is the litmus test for my farming skills. I hope I will be able to keep them alive through this summer. Keeping fingers crossed. Goal is to achieve a permanent system which needs very little maintenance after the plants grow and develop deep roots. After that there is no much work, only enjoy the "fruits" of our labor.
By the way list of saplings I listed above are only one level of canopy in multiple canopy system. Some people say 7 levels, some say 9 levels - let us just say multi level to emphasis the fact that we can get really good productivity by emulating natural forests where plants of different heights grow close to each other producing abundant amount of food. Roughly these are the levels we are going to have in the farm:

• Tall trees
• Short/dwarf trees
• Shrubs
• Herbs
• Tubers/root vegetables (underground)
• Creepers/climbers (climbing on trees and shrubs)

Paddy fields below the forest area had been left fallow (un-cultivated) for last 2 years. Planning to do some paddy this year as an experiment using natural farming technique. Only time will tell the results. I will post a new article about how that experiment goes and the outcome of it. I am planning to sow some seed mixture in the remaining area to avoid weeds growing there. For now we have decided to keep the paddy fields for growing grains. We may convert a part of it to food forest if we find we don't need so much area to grow grains.

Paddy fields left fallow (un-cultivated)

Cashew season begins

My son spotted one cashew fruit fallen on the ground when we were walking in the farm today. Then we walked around and found several dozens of them fallen on the ground.

Bucket full of cashew apples

Biological name of cashew is "Anacardium Occidentale". Anacardium is derived from Greek language. Ana meaning "reverse" or "backwards" and cardium or cardio means "heart". Meaning of the term is one having its heart reversed - that is to say heart of the fruit, the seed, is outside; which is the reverse of vast majority of fruits containing the seed inside the fruit.

Cashew flowers and fruits under development

You are very well aware of tasty cashew nuts (called "kaju" in Hindi which is an adaptation from Portuguese name "caju" for cashew). It is eaten as a nut, dipped in masala and fried to make it a tasty snack, and used in cooking. However, the fruit part is not well known to people; especially city dwellers. Actually it is not a fruit; it is the swollen stalk of the real fruit. Real fruit is the cashew nut hanging below the pseudo fruit securely wrapped in a hard shell with toxic/acidic liquid called urushiol. You will repent if you bite into the shell because the juice burns the skin and causes blisters. People allergic to urushiol get severe skin rashes if touched. This is the main reason why cashew nut is always sold to end users after removing the shell. Cashew processing factories extract the nut shell oil after removing the cashew nut from the shell. This oil is traditionally used as a protective coating on wood to protect wood from rotting and termite attack.

This year I am going to get some amount of cashew nuts. At home it is difficult to remove the shell like the factories do because factories use a special cashew nut cutting machine (manual / semi-automatic / fully automatic) to remove the shell.

Traditionally cashew was processed at homes by burning the shell. In my ancestral home we had a perforated steel plate for this purpose. We used to light a fire, keep the perforated plate on the fire and put the cashew nuts on the plate. Cashew nut shell has highly inflammable oils. It catches fire soon and burns rapidly. Burning process emits beautiful and characteristic smell which goes to far away distances. Whole village will know if one house is burning cashew shells. Burning process should be carefully controlled and the burning nuts should be doused at the right time because:

• Too less burning leaves the urushiol and other toxic contents in the shell. It burns the fingers if one tries to take out the kernel from incompletely burnt shells. Sometimes left over toxic oil that came out of the shell reaches the kernel which makes them inedible.
• Too much burning converts the whole thing into charcoal!

Cashew burning expert in the house knows when to douse the fire and douses it. After dousing the fire and nuts cool down it is the matter of hammering out the outer burnt shell to take out the tasty kernels. By the way, burnt kernels taste better than the factory shelled kernels because burning process introduces new flavors and smells. You can see the whole process in the video below. The guy in the video makes it look so easy. But don't be fooled by that; he is a professional who knows the process very well.

Coming back to the fruit (well, it is a pseudo fruit, I have already told you) it is a very juicy and tasty fruit. It is highly nutritious too. It is very rich in fiber, antioxidants, calcium, phosphorous, iron, vitamin C and potassium. Some sources say it contains 4-5 times more Vitamin C than Orange. Fruit juice boosts immune system. It is also known to kill worms in the digestive system.

Ripe cashew fruit in foreground

Unfortunately several thousand tonnes of this fruit with such good health benefits goes waste every year. Goa is the only state which extracts the famous Feni liquor from it. Selling this fruit is not a commercial success because: (a) Its shelf life is very short - a day or two maximum after plucking from the tree. (b) Being a soft fruit it bruises and is damaged easily. Therefore difficult to transport. (c) It has a strong smell. Some people don't like that kind of strong smell. It is a great fruit to eat if you are not averse to its smell.

Pluck a ripe fruit from the tree, wash it, twist and keep aside the nut, cut it, apply little salt if you like and eat it. You may spit out the fiber if you don't like to swallow it. If you can lay your hands on a cashew apple try it and see if you like it! See you later, I am busy enjoying today's harvest of my cashew apples :-)

Note: Be careful about cashew nuts and fruit if you are allergic to nuts because many people with nut allergy are allergic to cashew nuts too.