Pokkali Cultivation Calendar
Month |
Activity | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Apr 14-30 | Draining Drying |
Draining, Clearing and reinforcing Cheras/Bunds |
| May | Farm Preparation | Ploughing, Tilling, Sowing Mound Creation |
| Jun | Sowing | June 1-15: Let first monsoon rains wash out soil salt. June 16-23: Germinate seeds for sowing June 24-30: Sow seeds and monitor for bird and rodent pests for 10 days. |
| July | Spreading | Spread out and distribute 28-day old foot-high saplings from mounds with its clay root clump to cover all farm |
| Aug | Monitor | Monitor for bird and rodent pests. Periodically drain farm to allow sunlight to reach root clump. |
| Sep | Monitor | Monitor for bird and rodent pests. Open sluice gates to allow for regular tidal inflows and outflows. |
| Oct | Harvesting | Await golden hue of rice grains and visual tilt of heavy stalks. At around 110 days from sowing, initiate harvesting. Cut top 2/3rd of stalk with gains. Leave bottom 1/3rd bare stalk in the farm for organic composting. |
| Nov 01-14 | Threshing Drying Milling |
Dry/Roll/Dry harvested slaks. Thresh harvested stalks to get rice grains. 5-day drying/cooling/rolling sequence to get needed quantitiy of sowing seeds for next season. Store in dark/cool place. Boil/Dry/Mill rest of sweeds to get rice graiins. |
| Nov 15-30 | Prawn Farming | Prepare farm for Prawn farming |
| Dec | Prawn Farming | Prawn farming |
| Jan | Prawn Farming | Prawn farming |
| Feb | Prawn Farming | Prawn farming |
| Mar | Prawn Farming | Prawn farming |
| Apr 01-14 | Prawn Harvesting | Harvest Prawn and wind down Prawn Farming |