A one-day training program on ‘Water resource management for sustainable agriculture in Punjab’ was held at PAMETI on 25th March 2019. The training covered various cultural practices, which could help the farmers to conserve water. A total of 21 participants from various districts of Punjab attended the training programme.
Dr H S Dhaliwal, Director, PAMETI outline the objective of the training program and explained the alarming situation of falling ground water table in the state. He said that if the falling ground water table remains unchecked, Punjab could experience severe crisis in future.
Dr Rajan Aggarwal, Head, Deptt. of Soil & Water Engineering explained the current water scenario in Punjab and the methods to use the water for agriculture in a sustainable manner. He said that agriculture, being one of the major consumer of ground water in country as well as state, needs to be practised by keeping in mind the actual availability of water and any wastage or excess application should be checked.
A field visit was conducted by Dr Nilesh Biwalkar, Deptt. of Soil & Water Engineering, PAU. Participants were shown the fields in which different irrigation techniques such as sub-surface and surface irrigation were used to water the crops. Dr Biwalkar explained the technicalities of different irrigation techniques, which could help to conserve water.
Dr K G Singh, Professor, Deptt. of Soil & Water Engineering, PAU told the participants about the use of irrigation techniques in protected cultivation to grow crops such as cucumber, capsicum and tomato etc. A field visit in this regard was conducted, where the participants were practically shown the cultivation of above-mentioned crops being grown with the drip irrigation technique.
Mr Lakhwinder Singh, Deputy Director (Marketing), PAMETI thanked the participants for taking part in the training program. He emphasized on the need to save water as the ground water availability in Punjab was falling sharply and hoped that the participants would spread the word about the same in their villages and nearby areas to their fellow farmers. |
