1. After sowing of each crop mulching should be carried out to conserve moisture, to reduce weed problem and to maintain soil temperature. It can be done by using plant residues, dried leaves, paddy straw, coconut husk, cover crops etc.
2. For upland rice/jhum fields, soil conservation can be practised using bamboos, logs or boulders as mechanical barriers.
3. Do complete the sowing of maize within April month for realizing higher yield.
4. Farmers are advocated to cultivate maize along with French bean as intercrop for balancing soil fertility level.
5. Farmers can go for cultivation of sesame. Suitable varieties of sesame crops suitable for our region are Amrit, Prachi and CUMS-17.
6. Farmers can go for cultivation of green gram too. Suitable variety of green gram suitable for our region is Pratap.
7. Procure seed from authentic source (Govt. agencies or reliable source) and check the label properly.
Poultry –Mahak Singh
1. Since it’s the onset of summer, birds should be kept well hydrated. Add some electrolytes (ORS) in the drinking water atleast once a day on very hot days. Some vitamins may also be added for 8-10 days.
2. Avoid overcrowding and keep the litter material dry.
3. Adjust the bulbs kept for heating by adjusting the height above the floor if the birds show signs of heat stress such as degluttation and sprawling on the litter material.
4. Broilers should be given adlibitum feed and water. Do not overfeed the laying birds, however water should be provided adlibitum.
5. Lights in the brooder houses are not turned off in general. However from the age of 20-25 days lights may be turned off for 1-2 hours to accustom the birds to sudden power cuts and avoid panic.
6. Deworming of birds may be started from the age of 35-45 days and repeat every 3 month.
7. Vaccinate on schedule with all necessary vaccines. In Nagaland context Newcastle, fowl pox and IBD vaccines are must especially for layers.
8. Regularly disinfect the feeders and drinkers.
Piggery – Mahak Singh
1. To mitigate the heat stresses in summer add ORS/ electrolytes in drinking water on hot day’s atleast once daily. Additionally some liquid vitamins may also be offered.
2. Deworm and vaccinate the animals on schedule.
3. Check the animal bodies’ atleast twice daily for signs of maggot infestation which is very common in the warmer months.
4. Never allow visitors or stray animals, cats/ dogs/ cows or even chicken near your pig shed.
5. It is good to castrate piglets between the ages of 2 days – 2 weeks.
6. Cut off the needle teeth of piglets soon after birth.
7. Iron injection should be given to piglets at the age of 3 days and 15 days.
8. Disinfect the sheds atleast once a week.
9. Always clean out the feeding troughs before giving fresh feed and water.
10. Use of drinking nipples reduce water loss and prevent water logging.
11. Serve the sows on heat 24 hours after standing heat. Repeat the serve after 12 hours
Fishery- Jyotish Barman
1. Renovation works like pond excavation, strengthening of embankment and side slopes, etc. should be completed.
2. For dry pond bottom, apply powdered agricultural lime @ 130 kg/ha. In case of water-filled pond, should be first dissolved in water in a container and then spray over the water surface.
3. For water filled pond, manuring and fertilization should be done after 10 days of lime application. Apply cowdung@1 ton/ha after 10 days of lime application. Cow dung should be placed at one corner of the pond so that it dissolves slowly. After 7-10 days, apply urea @ 25 kg/ha and SSP @ 20 kg/ha. Urea and SSP can be mixed together with pond mud and the mixture should be placed at different spots of the pond bottom.
4. In case the above management practice is already completed, then stocking of fingerlings should not be delayed.
5. Quality and disease-free fish seed should be procured from certified hatchery or from known source.
6. As far as possible, fingerling of 10 cm size should be stocked to ensure faster growth and less mortality. Carried over seeds (i.e., one year old fish seed), if available should be stocked as they grow faster.
7. Pond should be stocked with the six species composition of Rohu (Labeo rohita), Catla (Catla catla), Mrigal (Cirrhinus mrigala), Grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella), Silver carp (Hypopthalmichthys molitrix) and Common carp (Cyprinus carpio).
8. Species composition includes Rohu – 20 %, Catla – 25 %, Mrigal – 20 %, Silver carp – 15 %, Grass carp – 10 % and Common carp – 10%.
9. Pond should be stocked with 10000 fingerlings per hectare.
10. Fingerling should be stocked preferably in the morning hours or when the temperature is cool. Stocking should not be done at mid-day or when the temperature is high. Optimum temperature for better fish growth is 28-32 °C.
11. Before releasing the fish seed into the pond, it should be acclimatized to the pond condition. Acclimatization is necessary to ensure lesser mortality. Acclimatization can be done by keeping the oxygen packed bag floating on the water for about 30 minutes and then slowly releasing the fish. Alternatively, if fish seed are brought in open vessel, then pond water should be mixed slowly in the container and release the seed.
12. Since natural food is not enough to meet the feed requirement of the growing fish, fish should be fed with supplementary diet which can be either prepared at home or procured from market (commercial feed). Supplementary feed can be prepared by mixing Rice polish/Rice bran and mustard oil cake (1 : 1 ratio) and provide the diet in dough form @ 4 kg /day/ha.
