For the past 4-5 years, farmers in the cotton belt of Malwa region in Punjab and parts of Haryana have been sowing cotton through the raised bed plantation method. The trend of sowing cotton through this method is catching up in the Mansa and Bathinda area of Malwa, Farming Cosmos volunteer Baljinder Singh Kotbhara reports.
Farmers stated that they have been getting good results with the experiment of sowing cotton in beds and their input costs are also less. There are some benefits of sowing cotton on raised beds:
- Sowing cotton manually on the raised beds in a dry field leads to lower consumption of seeds by one or two packets per acre due to which the expenses of farmers also go down.
- The crop neither gets burnt by the scorching sun nor the top layer of the soil gets a hard crust in case of rain. Due to the raised bed plantation sowing of cotton, the expenses of tilling, sowing and buying seeds again are saved as the soil doesn’t get encrusted.
- There are fewer weeds in the field.
- As compared to the conventional method of sowing cotton, growth of the crop and cotton bolls is better through the raised bed method.
- Soil covers both sides of the plants due to which the risk of cotton plants lodging or getting damaged on account of strong winds is minimised.
- The crop is irrigated through furrows around the beds, which makes it easier to drain out excess water in case of heavy rainfall and cotton can be saved from getting damaged.
Cotton sown on raised beds in a village of district Bathinda in Punjab.
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