PUSA spray: a breakthrough to reduce air pollution in Delhi NCR

Bengaluru-based firm “nurture.farm” is providing technology to aid farmers to spray decomposers over an unprecedented 5 lakh acres which proves to be a boon to the National Capital Region (NCR). The firm is offering a microbial bioenzyme “Boom spray” developed by Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) to help farmers across India to dispose stubble (crop residue) on their farms responsibly. The company is giving free service to farmers where spraying the bioenzyme, named “Pusa Decomposer”, and gets converted into manure, thereby improving the quality of soil. A technologyled solutions provider for sustainable agriculture, has signed up with more than 25,000 farmers, mostly in Punjab and Haryana, covering an area of over 5,00,000 acres. Thanks to IARI and nurture.farm for this innovative solution to poor air quality index.

- Dr varsha Gayatonde and Dr PrudhviRaj Vennela

The “boom sprayer” is a hybrid between a tractor and an autobot from the Transformers; its has two 20-feet booms that spread out like outstretched wings. On them are equally spaced nozzles that spray bio-decomposers on the freshly harvested rice field where about 700 of these machines will be at work across 5 lakh acres in Punjab and Haryana. The decomposers are a powder (earlier introduced as capsules) mixed in water meant to accelerate the process of turning rice stubble into compost. Untreated rice straw takes 4-8 weeks to disintegrate which is too long for the average farmer to wait to be able to sow the winter wheat crop. The other option is to employ farm labour, who will cut the stalk and pile it into bundles, but that's expensive and unaffordable for more than 95% of the farmers. Here, by not alighting the fields, carbon as well as essential soil micronutrients will be retained. After spraying, the soil needs to be turned over and irrigated. When done correctly — spraying, turning the soil over and irrigating it for four days. As per the company claim, with the boom sprayer, an acre can be sprayed in 7 minutes whereas manually it takes half a day.