Agricultural practices – Preparation of soil and sowing seeds

Agricultural practices:

                Cultivation of crops involves several activities undertaken by farmers over a period of time. These activities or tasks are referred to as agricultural practices. These activities are as follows:

1. Preparation of soil
2. Sowing
3. Adding manure and fertilizers
4. Irrigation
5. Protecting from weeds
6. Harvesting
7. Storage

Preparation of Soil:

• It is the first step before growing the crop. In this process the soil is turned and made loose with the help
• of agricultural implements like plough, hoe and cultivator.
• Turning and loosening of the soil is necessary and main task in agriculture. This process is called TILLING or PLOUGHING. This is done by using a plough. The ploughed field may have big clumps of soil called crumbs which need to break before leveling the field. Leveling is beneficial for sowing as well as for irrigation.
• Loose soil allows the roots to grow deep inside the soil.
• Loose soil also provides sufficient air to the roots to breath inside the soil.
• Turning and loosening of the soil brings the nutrients rich soil to the top so that plants can use these nutrients.
• The Loosened soil helps in the growth of earthworms and microbes present in the soil which further turn and loosen the soil and add humus to it.

Agricultural Implements:

      The main tools used for preparation of soil are as follows:

                  1. Plough

                  2. Hoe

                  3. Cultivator

Plough: It is a traditional tool which is being used for tilling the soil, adding fertilizers to the crop, removing the weeds and turning the soil.

Hoe: It is a simple tool which is used for removing weeds and for loosening the soil.

Cultivator: It is a tractor driven agricultural implement which saves labour and time.

Sowing seed:

           Scattering seeds on the Earth after soil is prepared for cultivation is termed as Sowing. Before sowing it is necessary to select good quality seeds.  

 Properties of good quality seeds:

• Good quality seeds possess good shape, size, colour, etc., according to specifications of variety.
• The seeds sink in the water rather than floating.
• These seeds give desired population of plants.
• Good quality seeds give plants which have capacity to withstand in the adverse conditions and give high yielding with healthy crop.

          Traditionally a funnel shaped tool were used for sowing seed earlier but, Nowadays the seed drill is used for sowing with the help of tractors. This sows the seeds in a queue uniformly at equal distance and depth. It ensures that seeds get covered by the soil after sowing.

         The seeds of some plant such as paddy, first grown in a nursery and after growing their seedling transplant to field manually.

 

Assignment:

• Why does the soil need to be turned and loosened?
• Why does the loosening of soil allow the roots to breathe easily?
• The process of loosening and turning of soil is called;

                (a) Irrigation and manuring          (c) tilling and ploughing

                (b) digging and winnowing           (d) harvesting and storage

• Fill in the blanks:
  1. The first step before growing crops is …………….of the soil.
  2. Sowing of seeds at appropriate ………….and …………..gives good yield.
  3. It is necessary to prepare soil by ……………….and …………….
  4. Damaged seeds would ……………on top of water.