Laser leveling in agriculture can save water

Ludhiana, Apr 27: The use of laser leveling would yield enormous benefits for agriculture, the most important being saving of water and reduction in electricity consumption.

Stating this at a Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) seminar here today, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Director of Extension Education N S Malhi stated that the country was now poised for precision farming through laser leveling. It is the first step in the direction to sustain agriculture and to usher second green revolution.

Expressing the need for proper water management, Dr Malhi said Punjab had 96 per cent of the area under assured irrigation.

However, the under groundwater reservoir was depleting at an alarming rate, he pointed out.

Laser leveling ensured not only uniform depth of water in the entire field but also ensured uniform germination and growth of the crop in the field, thus, suppressing the weeds, he said. This also saved all other farm inputs to the advantage of the farmers, he added.

PAU was planning to introduce laser leveling technology in a big way, Dr Malhi said while pointing out that the Punjab Cooperative Department had already purchased 50 laser levelers to undertake laser leveling on cooperative basis. He pointed out that western Punjab, now called Pakistan, was ahead of India in using this technology.

Dr S S Ahuja, Senior Agricultural Engineer said that PAU has planned to propagate this technology through KVKs by undertaking extensive demonstration and training programmes.

The training programme are essentially designed to upgrade knowledge and skills of the engineers and other extension workers all over the state so that they could address the problems of the farmers during introduction of this technology.

UNI