The chapters in the book on drip irrigation narrate its concept interestingly and take the reader hand in hand from beginning to end.
The hope of A.D Hope, a famed Australian poet, who believed that prophets hail from deserts to reform societies as they did, seems to have been fulfilled. As he opined in his poem Australia, a prophet hailed from Israel, much of whose land is desert, and sowed seeds of reformation across the world. But the seeds are just little drops of water to save the large quantity of the same on earth – the planet which could have seen a war between countries for the wealth called water.
“Simcha Blass, an engineer from Israel, was irrigating the trees through iron pipes in his garden. He found a small hole in one of the pipes and water was dripping through it. Then he tried plugging the hole with a piece of cloth. Still, water dripped drop by drop there.
In due course, a giant tree was grown in that place and it looked better than all the other trees in his garden. Blass, to his surprise, found that the soil at the tree was flexible and rich in air circulation, whereas the soil was rigid at the other trees and had little air circulation.
This incident later turned out to be a catalyst for the concept of drip irrigation '' writes M.Saravanakumar in his book Sottuneer Paasanam – Velanmayin Vidivelli (Drip irrigation – the morning star of agriculture).
A post-graduate in Agriculture and General manager (South India) of Netafim Irrigations Private Limited, an Israel-based drip irrigation company, Saravanakumar is an avid reader of literature, history, politics, and philosophy. And his passion for writing has made him pen a reader-friendly Tamil book on drip irrigation. Interestingly, the book, which contains as many as sixteen chapters on the merits of drip irrigation, has been written like short stories in the typical Kongu Tamil dialect so that any agriculturist can understand the scientific concept hands down. The chapters in the book move as conversations on doubts and clarifications on modern drip irrigation systems among the characters Jayabal Annnan from Chevur, Mohan from Karamadai, his uncle – all farmers, and Muruganandam, a drip irrigation expert.
“By explaining the methods of setting up drip irrigation in simple language, Saravanakumar has taken its merits to the farmers.
Written in the simple dialect of Tamil with illustrations and diagrams, the chapters in the book narrate its concept interestingly and take the reader hand in hand from beginning to end” admires B.K. Krishnaraj Vanavarayar, Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (Coimbatore chapter) in his foreword to the book.
“We eat three times a day. But can we eat a week’s food as a one-time meal and be hungry for the rest of the week? This is what we do to our crops. In the conventional irrigation system, we irrigate the crops with water brimming at the ridge of the field once a week and leave the crops hungry for the rest of the days. Even if you irrigate a tree with 1000 liters of water once a week, for instance, a coconut tree can absorb only 100 to 120 liters of water. The rest of the water is ingested by the earth or goes with the wind. The fact is that crops absorb only the necessary quantity of water they require”
When Saravanakumar explains this scientific fact through the character Muruganandam, Mohan, the farmer, realizes how he wasted the water in the illusion that crops absorb whatever the water he poured out.
“Had drip irrigation system appeared earlier in our villages, many farmers who were cultivating on rain-fed lands could have retained their occupation and enjoyed rich harvests in cotton, sugarcane, banana, and mulberry” worries Ravichandran of Kovai Iyarkai Nalavazhvu Mayyam, who published the first edition of the book.
The book, in all its sixteen chapters, throws light on everything about drip irrigation as its setup, operation, maintenance, repair, and so on. The book speaks on the water economy, reduction of labor, sharp increases in yields through drip irrigation, and schemes, loans, and subsidies from the government for setting up drip irrigation.
“The book provides clear answers to the questions of the farmers who are in the dilemma of setting up drip irrigation systems on their fields” praises Dr. Geethalakshmi, the Vice Chancellor of Tamil Nadu Agriculture University.
Oviyar Siva, who designed the book beautifully, seems to have ‘drip-irrigated’ the pages. He draws a drop of water below the pages, on which their respective numbers appear.
“Simcha Blass, an engineer from Israel, was irrigating the trees through iron pipes in his garden. He found a small hole in one of the pipes and water was dripping through it. Then he tried plugging the hole with a piece of cloth. Still, water dripped drop by drop there.
In due course, a giant tree was grown in that place and it looked better than all the other trees in his garden. Blass, to his surprise, found that the soil at the tree was flexible and rich in air circulation, whereas the soil was rigid at the other trees and had little air circulation.
This incident later turned out to be a catalyst for the concept of drip irrigation '' writes M.Saravanakumar in his book Sottuneer Paasanam – Velanmayin Vidivelli (Drip irrigation – the morning star of agriculture).
A post-graduate in Agriculture and General manager (South India) of Netafim Irrigations Private Limited, an Israel-based drip irrigation company, Saravanakumar is an avid reader of literature, history, politics, and philosophy. And his passion for writing has made him pen a reader-friendly Tamil book on drip irrigation. Interestingly, the book, which contains as many as sixteen chapters on the merits of drip irrigation, has been written like short stories in the typical Kongu Tamil dialect so that any agriculturist can understand the scientific concept hands down. The chapters in the book move as conversations on doubts and clarifications on modern drip irrigation systems among the characters Jayabal Annnan from Chevur, Mohan from Karamadai, his uncle – all farmers, and Muruganandam, a drip irrigation expert.
“By explaining the methods of setting up drip irrigation in simple language, Saravanakumar has taken its merits to the farmers.
Written in the simple dialect of Tamil with illustrations and diagrams, the chapters in the book narrate its concept interestingly and take the reader hand in hand from beginning to end” admires B.K. Krishnaraj Vanavarayar, Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (Coimbatore chapter) in his foreword to the book.
“We eat three times a day. But can we eat a week’s food as a one-time meal and be hungry for the rest of the week? This is what we do to our crops. In the conventional irrigation system, we irrigate the crops with water brimming at the ridge of the field once a week and leave the crops hungry for the rest of the days. Even if you irrigate a tree with 1000 liters of water once a week, for instance, a coconut tree can absorb only 100 to 120 liters of water. The rest of the water is ingested by the earth or goes with the wind. The fact is that crops absorb only the necessary quantity of water they require”
When Saravanakumar explains this scientific fact through the character Muruganandam, Mohan, the farmer, realizes how he wasted the water in the illusion that crops absorb whatever the water he poured out.
“Had drip irrigation system appeared earlier in our villages, many farmers who were cultivating on rain-fed lands could have retained their occupation and enjoyed rich harvests in cotton, sugarcane, banana, and mulberry” worries Ravichandran of Kovai Iyarkai Nalavazhvu Mayyam, who published the first edition of the book.
The book, in all its sixteen chapters, throws light on everything about drip irrigation as its setup, operation, maintenance, repair, and so on. The book speaks on the water economy, reduction of labor, sharp increases in yields through drip irrigation, and schemes, loans, and subsidies from the government for setting up drip irrigation.
“The book provides clear answers to the questions of the farmers who are in the dilemma of setting up drip irrigation systems on their fields” praises Dr. Geethalakshmi, the Vice Chancellor of Tamil Nadu Agriculture University.
Oviyar Siva, who designed the book beautifully, seems to have ‘drip-irrigated’ the pages. He draws a drop of water below the pages, on which their respective numbers appear.