Skill Development Progarmme on Soil Health Card organized at Panapalli village, the home of Irula Tribe

With an aim to emphasize and creating the awareness about the soil health, a Skill Development Programme themed “Soil test and yield target based balanced fertilization” under the aegis of ICAR-AICRP on Soil Test Crop Response was organized on 24th October, 2018 at the Panapalli tribal village, the home of Irula tribe, situated in Anaikatti Hills of Western Ghats Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu.

Dr. Pradip Dey, Project Coordinator (STCR), discussed and explained the participants about the importance of soil health and its maintenance through the STCR-based approach and distributed the soil health card to around thirty farmers under the STC (erstwhile TSP) Programme.

Dr. R. Santhi, Professor and Head AICRP-STCR Scheme Incharge at TNAU, Coimbatore highlighted the importance and need of soil testing and balanced fertilization.

The main aim of organizing such a programme was to imbibe the skill in soil sampling for soil testing and to infuse the knowledge on balanced fertilization for harvesting better yield, profitability, sustaining the soil health and earning a good livelihood for the tribal farmers.

The participatory Rabi Crop Planning proved to be one of the major attractions of the Programme. The interaction session between the scientists and the farmers discussed about the soil health card, manure, fertilizer application, interaction of these factors on yield and the quality of the produce in particular.

Around forty five tribal farmers including 29 women farmers, participated in the Programme

(Source: AICRP-STCR,Bhopal)