Aryabhatta prepares for 5 lakh seed balls

Berhampur: Aryabhatta Foundation, an organisation spearheading a movement for a 'Green Ganjam', has taken up a novel initiative for preparing a whopping five lakhs seed balls this year through its volunteers and other workers to increase green cover and reduce air pollution.

"We have decided to prepare five lakh seed balls this year. We started scattering seed balls in 2019 and used around five lakh seed balls during these three years on 13 hills in Ganjam. Planted 1.5 lakh saplings around 2 lakh seeds till now, said SudhirRout, the chairman of Aryabhatta also famous as 'Greenman of Odisha'.

"We plant trees in three modes that include through saplings, sowing of seeds and through the seed balls. The first one is used in plain areas, the second one on hills accessible and third one on hills mostly in-accessible. The latter two are often used in plain areas also", he said.

"During 2017 we sowed seeds on a hill on Hoeing, near Girisola. Some environment activists in the Amar Kantak area who have been working to bring greenery in Tapti and Basin gifted us a seedball machine in 2019, Sudhir stated.

Some potting soil, clay mixed with manures and seeds is put into the machine.The soil rolls into balls picking up a few seeds.The balls are dried. Each ball contains 4-5 seeds on an average. They are thrown from vantage positions on a hill.

The seeds can remain safe inside the ball for two-three months. The seed ball protects the seeds from small hungry animals and birds. Rain breaks down the clay and the humus provides necessary nutrients for the young seedlings.

In the absence of the human and cattle movements, the efficiency is upto 60 percent. Even in their presence 10 percent survive. The saplings grown are stronger than those grown in nurseries and can grow in adverse conditions, Sudhir said.

"First we make a survey of the hill to be taken up for green cover and note down the species native to the locality and prepare balls from seeds native to the locality. Planting exotic species does not help in improving the ecological balance of the locality.

The foundation started preparing seed balls for this year on Tuesday when the 'Green Nobel laureate' Prafulla Samantara was the chief guest.

Seed balls, which is also used for vegetation in many foreign countries, eliminates the effort of ploughing and digging holes in the soil for seeds, providing much advantage of ploughing with less use of machinery. It is an eco-friendly technique for planting with minimal disturbance to ecology.

Seeds balls are an ancient technique for propagating plants from seeds without opening up soil with cultivation tools such as a plough. The rediscovery and popularisation of seed balls in modern times is typically ascribed to Japanese natural farmer and philosopher Masanobu Fukuoka, sources said.