Under the guidance of the Directorate of Extension Education, PAU, Ludhiana, a travel seminar on “Surface Seeder Sown Wheat” was organized by FASC, Hoshiarpur (Gangian) on 16th April, 2024 in village Biggowal, Block Hajipur. About 50 farmers from 12 villages participated in this event.
Dr Rakesh Kumar Sharma, DES (Entomology), welcomed all the participants in the travel seminar.
Dr Amit Salaria, Extension Scientist, PAU, Ludhiana, motivated the farmers to adopt surface seeder technology for wheat. He emphasized that technology is the easiest and practical way to manage paddy straw and the crop sown through this method has been in excellent conditions.
Dr Charanjeet Kaur, Incharge-cum-SES-(Agronomy), discussed agronomic practices for successfully cultivating this technology. She explained that this innovative technology offers a sustainable alternative for managing paddy straw, mitigating the need for environmentally harmful burning practices. She said that mulching of wheat crop with paddy residue helps in retaining moisture as well as provides very effective control of weeds especially Phalaris minor. She further stated that surface seeding is a technique with which farmers can decrease their input cost and get more yield and profit.
The seminar included a field visit to Sardar Paramjeet Singh’s farm, where 13 acres of wheat were sown successfully using the surface seeder machine. While sharing his experience, he told that he started practicing this technology three years back on a small land area. The farmer said that he had not used any herbicide in surface seeding fields as weed infestation was very low. The surface seeding wheat provided more grain yield per acre as compared to other sowing methods as well as there was no lodging of crop in this technology.
Sardar Mukhtiar Singh of the same village, who had sown 16 acres with this technology, also shared his positive experience and advised other farmers to adopt it. Besides, farmers Mr Shubham Thakur from village Biggowal and Sardar Partap Singh from village Kasrawan also adopted this technology on 10 and15 acres, respectively. Participants were impressed by the wheat fields sown using the Surface Seeder and convinced to adopt this technique in the upcoming Rabi season.
Dr Indira Devi, DES (Fruits), extended a vote of thanks and motivated farmers to get connected with PAU social media platform. | 
