The Miyawaki Method of Afforestion is a model developed by Prof. Akira Miyawaki to grow a forest in the quickest possible manner. His template can be used in many ways. I have mentioned several times how we can use it to make vegetable and fruit gardens near our house, and I have seen certain people draw inspiration from our model and implement it in interesting ways. One of them is Sri Ajithkumar, an Electrical engineer working with the ISRO. His perspectives are very novel, and he uses cost-effective methods to implement the ideas he likes. First, let’s have a look at a couple of projects he has undertaken. Then I shall tell you how he has customized the Miyawaki Method.
This is a part of his house and the tube you see here is a segment of the solar tunnel lighting technique he has installed. The entire equipment can either be purchased or assembled at home. Through this method, sunlight is brought into the rooms via a tunnel. It has many advantages. As AC alternates between positive and negative, there is likely to be fluctuation in voltage. DC, on the other hand, is steady. Likewise, sunlight is steady and we can make optimal use of it at home. Upon making a chance discovery of its many advantages, Sri Ajithkumar spoke to various experts and eventually developed different parts of this equipment.
What he says is that the intensity of light is measured in lux. He found out that the light emitted by the bulbs we use in our living rooms is 300-350 lux. If we need more light, we should either increase the number of bulbs or fix them at a lower level. But sunlight – especially between 11 am and 2 pm – goes above one lakh lux. Even before the sun rises, the intensity of light is 300-350 lux. By 7 or 8 am, it is 30,000 lux. On a sunny day, it goes up to one lakh lux. We can bring this light into our rooms by means of a tunnel.
This has numerous benefits. One, it will not conduct heat into the room. If it is brought into an air-conditioned room, the temperature of the light will be the same as that which is set inside. Two, it will not flicker like bulbs that run on alternating current. Generally, we don’t notice flickering because it happens at a speed – 50 times in one second – that our eyes cannot detect. But it affects our vision when we look at objects. That is the reason why after choosing a piece of cloth in a textile shop, people take it out into the natural light to ascertain its exact colour.
Direct current however does not pose such a problem, and sunlight gives us something similar to it. We can see the exact colour. If those who have to do very sensitive work, like quality checking, rely on this kind of light in their rooms, this is the plus point. Similarly, indoor plants also need sunlight. But if the residents are too old to maintain a garden outside, they can adopt this method, bring solar light inside, and thus help indoor plants grow well.
What we require is a tunnel made of PVC pipe with a light-reflective material lining the inner surface, like the aluminium foil inside cigarette boxes of old. The smoother the surface – for instance, if we opt for electroplating – the greater its reflexive capacity. At the bottom end of the tunnel is a diffuser – meant to spread the light – and at the top end, a dome to permit the light inside. As far as Kerala is concerned, we know that we get sunlight as the sun moves from east to the west through the southern side. It passes directly overhead only for a short period of time. When that happens, the chances for getting sunlight from the south are greater. Therefore, if we tilt the dome a little to the south, we have better chances of getting more light.
This is another equipment he assembled at home to harness wind power. It is a miniature version of a wind mill. The conventional wind mill makes use of huge blades. But he has used spiral sheets. They look attractive as he has selected the colours of our national flag. This works at the slightest breeze. Although it cannot generate as much power as to run an entire house, it can be used – unlike solar energy – during nights and rainy seasons as well.
Kerala is a region that gets at least 100 days of rain a year. So during the rains we will not get solar energy to the fullest extent. The sun will not be fully visible even. Similarly, we will not get solar energy during night time. So in order to supplement the electricity we produce from sunlight, we can fix a wind mill. This unit is designed in the shape of a screw. The advantage of such a shape is that it can capture wind from any direction. Besides, it will rotate only in one direction whether the wind blows from east to west or from west to east. As it rotates, it will produce electricity. Although it looks like cloth in appearance, it is made of metal.
Solar panels have been fixed above them to function like a roof and protect them from rain. This is a hybrid mechanism that combines solar and wind energy. Generally, wind accompanies rain. And even if wind blows at a mere 2 kmph, these mills will turn. Both these units produce electricity. If such small-scale wind mills are put up in places like Kerala, or in any place of high elevation, or in any place that receives a lot of rain, we can increase production of electricity.
Now, let’s look at how he has customized the Miyawaki Method. You will see how he has used his engineering skills in farming as well. Usually, we put up a flat canopy mounted on pillars, and train creepers over them so that fruits and vegetables hang down. Here, he has designed a tunnel-like canopy over a small canal by fixing arches. So fish can be reared in the canal.
There is a unique engineering component in it. Look at the way he has done it. On seeing a television programme on the practice of constructing canopies in farms in Thailand, he experimented with it in his own plot. Normally, if we put up a canopy over a three-metre wide land, we get a three-metre wide space on top of it. Instead of that, what he has done is to profitably use land lying vacant in between two coconut trees. The furrow in this patch of land is used to carry water for irrigating the trees.
He put a tunnel-like canopy over a three-metre-wide furrow, using a series of arches of two-inch-thick square pipes. These arches were placed at a distance of four metres from one another and held in place using horizontally fixed GI pipes, with the help of nuts and screws. The last segment has been firmly fixed to the ground. The entire canopy stands on the strength it imparts. There are seven strips, three each on either side and one on top. The advantage of this structure is that although the surface width of the ground is only three metres, the canopy virtually stretches it to five-and-a-half metres. That is, additional space is made available.
Passion fruit vine grows in all seasons in Kerala, and puts out fruits throughout summer. So it is a crop that can provide income for seven-to-eight months a year. Passion fruit vine has been trained on this canopy. Ordinary nylon net has been tied over this framework. As it will not get hot, the creeper will grow over it. He has put up the canopy from one end to the other. Besides passion fruit, you can grow other vegetable plants too like bitter gourd or snake gourd. These cave-like structures in the middle of the garden plot are really beautiful to look at. They can be put up to cover pathways in a coconut orchard or any other place. You need not have any worries about its strength. It can hold heavy weight. You can see that for yourself.
Now let’s see what he has done with the Miyawaki Method. The basic principle of the Miyawaki Method is to provide enough manure to sustain the plants for three to four years. By this time, the soil will become fertile in the natural course when leaves fall and get decomposed. But we need to ensure that there is enough manure in the soil until then. Most people try to bring down the investment costs by reducing the quantity of fertilizers. I don’t know whether that will help you get optimum results at the end of three or four years.
Many have asked me whether it is viable to do farming following the Miyawaki Method, and whether they will get sufficient income from it. Ajithkumar has adopted a very interesting technique of integrated farming here in 50 cents of land. Adopting the Miyawaki Method, he has opted for high-density planting and intermixing of several species of plants. He has also used a lot more quantity of manure than is conventionally done. The manure is totally organic. He has planted coconut trees. Instead of planting them in parallel rows as is generally done, he has adopted the zig-zag pattern. This has given him a lot of space for planting vegetable saplings.
Usually our farmers favour monocrop, planting only a single variety in a plot, like coconut orchards, rubber plantations, banana fields and so on. When a strong wind blows, all the banana plants may topple or the rubber trees may break; or when the rhinoceros beetle attacks, all the coconut trees will be affected. Such problems are likely to happen. If we plant rubber, we do not get any profit from it for six to seven years. But he has developed a unique method on his own.
Israel follows a high-density farming method in which they plant about 1,000 mango trees in one acre of land, and maintains the height of the trees at seven feet. None are permitted to grow any taller. They do not permit one tree to produce more than 60 fruits. Only one mango will be left standing in a bunch so that it can grow to the maximum size possible. As a result, three mangoes will weigh one kilogram. Going by this average, one acre of land will yield 60,000 mangoes or 20 tons of mangos. Even if we get a crop of only 2,000 mangoes, it will still be profitable. There are many varieties that fetch Rs 100 to Rs 130 per kilo. That translates to Rs two or three lakhs for 2,000 mangoes. Making more profit is possible, if it is done in a scientific manner.
What he has done here is that he has planted only 35 coconut trees in one acre of land as against the common practice of having 70 per acre. So the distance between the coconut trees got doubled. Further, instead of planting them in parallel rows as is generally done, he has adopted the zig-zag pattern. And in the in-between spaces, he planted mango trees. Instead of 1,000 per acre, he planted 500 mango trees because the coconut trees were already here. And when the mango trees grew tall, in the intervening spaces he planted banana plants. He has already had two crops of banana here. When the first set of banana plants were about to put out fruit, he planted a new set. In this manner, he followed the Miyawaki Model and filled his entire plot with plants.
He also used manure in a big way. He introduced a lot of organic manure into the land, and then planted the trees. That is the reason why all of them have grown so quickly. In the space that remained after all this, he planted different types of vegetable plants. He also trained passion fruit vines on the fence. In order to keep pests away, he planted plenty of yellow chrysanthemum plants. In this way, he adopted a method of having different types of crops in his garden plot. He is now thinking about what he can do with the free spaces that still remain.
He has planted jack trees in a small place. He did all this without ever having heard about Miyawaki. Now the trees have begun to produce fruit. These are Vietnam jack trees that produce fruits in two years. One jackfruit weighs up to an average of 80 kilos. So in a season, one tree may produce as many as eight to ten jack fruits. Ten fruits would come to 800 kilos produced by a single tree! Imagine the number of jack fruits you will get if you have 3,000 jack trees. The question as to what one can do with so many jack fruits is relevant here. We can sell them directly as fruits or as fruit powder and similar value-added products.
He is now thinking of planting curry leaf tree between the jack trees. That is because earlier he had followed a monocrop style by planting only jack trees. Here too he used a lot of manure. If he introduces other types of trees, it will certainly become polycrop. Rain hose is used here for irrigation. If it had been drip irrigation, each tree would get water only at its base. With rain hose, the entire area gets irrigated. And as manure has been spread all over the plot, the roots will spread in all directions and the plants will grow healthy.
This video was shot in order to give you an idea about Ajithkumar’s unique farming methods. He can say more about the effectiveness of the Miyawaki Method because he looks at it from an engineer’s perspective. Plants can be reared only if their root systems are properly developed. And as long as they remain clumped together – at the rate of 100 plants per cent – even stormy winds will not be able to uproot them. It was on seeing such an example that Sri Ajithkumar attempted to customize the method. There may be many other templates too. The positive factor of this technique is that no chemical fertilizers are used. Besides, many species of plants are nurtured. This will ensure moderate profit. Therefore consider these two models seriously. If there is anyone else with a similar success story to relate, we can experiment with their method also and choose the best among them.