May 11, 2015
Source: CIMMYT Blog
by Allen Jack McHugh
The CIMMYT-China Global Conservation Agriculture Program (GCAP) has delivered to key collaborators, locally designed planters that are being implemented through a broad Conservation Agriculture (CA) research network headed by Allen Jack McHugh, GCAP-China’s cropping system agronomist. National researchers are introducing CA into their programs and CA demonstration sites across the country are being readied for planting.
GCAP-China has been working closely with the Wangnongda Peanut Machinery Manufacturing Company (WPMMC) based in Qingdao, to develop a range of planters based on happy seeder technology, which is utilized extensively in India. A constraint to adoption of zero tillage across China has been the lack of a suitable planter that can cope with high residue loads on small farms under irrigation and on rainfed farms in the higher rainfall areas further south. WPMMC has worked with Qingdao Agricultural University and Ningxia Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Science (NAAFS) on various planting and harvesting equipment for years. NAAFS imported a large happy seeder from India in 2009, and then developed a range of low-cost, light-weight happy seeders for use with 25 horsepower (hp) to 75 hp tractors and, most recently, a two-wheeled tractor.
In March 2015, three hand-built customized planters were delivered to three of CIMMYT’s collaborators in western China. A long-time proponent of CA in Sichuan Province, Tang Yonglu, Head of the Crop Research Institute of Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, used the mini happy seeder to establish the first rainfed CA demonstration field in Santai County. The joint project between a local farmer, the County Agricultural Mechanization Bureau, the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Science and GCAP-China will be planting maize into standing wheat stubble in a freshly harvested field around May 20.
At the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Science Research Station in Chengdu, Tang Yonglu and his CA research team welcome the mini happy seeder they received through GCAP-China agronomist, Allen Jack McHugh. Photo: Allen Jack McHugh/CIMMYT.
South of Yinchuan in Ningxia Province is the city of Zhongwei, which is flanked by the Yellow River and the Tengger Desert on two sides. Despite these very harsh conditions, the Provincial Agricultural Mechanization Bureau and a local farmer association plan to establish a CA demonstration site to conduct a replicated comparison of farmers’ practices and CA. The newly acquired happy seeder will allow farmers to plant maize into last year’s stubble.
In Gansu Province, Professor Li Lingling of Gansu Agricultural University oversees a long-term CA research site established in 2002. Located in a harsh, arid region, it is one of the longest-running rainfed CA research sites in China. Thanks to its collaboration with Gansu Agricultural University, CIMMYT will have access to research that demonstrates the advantages of CA without waiting for CA’s benefits to slowly become evident under low input conditions. Thanks to financial and technical support from CIMMYT, Lingling and her research team at Dingxi received a two-wheeled happy seeder from Qingdao. They have already sown spring wheat with the seeder and are currently planting field pea in the research plots. “The machine is lightweight, maneuverable, and highly suited to research plot activities,” said Lingling.
GCAP sites in China. The map also indicates collaborators in Jilin (NE), Zhangye (NW), Beijing, and our activities in Ningxia.
GCAP-China, in collaboration with a growing research network, will continue to develop CA mechanization techniques while conducting field tests to evaluate the current suite of happy seeders and improve and adapt them to China’s diverse terrain.
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