Cow Manure Still Popular Among Hill Farmers

Ooty: While busy preparing their lands for the sowing season at the fag-end of winter now, many of the hill farmers still rely on adding cow manure to bring value addition and also to enrich the soil health to ensure a good yield.

Even amid the highly-prevalent chemical fertilisers use over the decades, the cultivators of hill vegetables like potato, carrot, cabbage and cauliflower still firmly feel that cow-manure is still the best for the farmlands to regain its soil vitality to support crop growth though cow-manure is costlier now.

Mudhan, a vegetable grower here, said that normally the hill farmers prepare the land for sowing in February as they hardly cultivate any crops in the preceding winter months of December and January due to the frost factor. In normal terms, two tonnes of cow-manure is needed per acre of farmland. Farmers source the cow-manure, a rich organic manure, from places like Mettupalayam and nearby areas in Coimbatore, though it is costly.''

“The compost cow manure has its own good soil health supporting benefits and nutrients and helpful in enriching the soil health. Usually during the winter, the farmers, especially those who want to take up potato cultivation once the winter is over, apply cow-manure while ploughing and preparing the land for next sowing season that generally commences in early March. The cow manure gets mixed up well with the soil. Though the farmers here apply chemical fertilisers when the crop grows, it is good to use cow-manure at the time of ploughing as it will give extra strength to the soil to result in good crop growth and to enhance yield,” he added.