"NECESSITY IS the mother of invention." Especially in this Ludhiana village where the depleting water table, inadequate power supply and acute shortage of farm labour made a local farmer devise a unique paddy sowing machine or ‘dibbler'.
‘Pandher's wonder' named after its founder Gurinder Singh Pandher, has not only reduced the cost of paddy cultivation by 70 per cent but has successfully grown paddy in dry fields, defying the notion that it is only a water plant.
"Paddy growers across the state, especially from Gurdaspur and Jalandhar, have been approaching me to buy the machine. But I want to first get it patented. So instead of selling the basic concept behind its mechanism I am offering free trials.", Pandher told HT.
Designing the machine cost him Rs 42,000. "In the present format it has endless advantages over traditional methods (see box) but I want to modify it so a single machine can be used to sow five crops including wheat , rice, maize, sunflower and potato on ridges", he added.
Pandher, who has a diploma in electrical engineering, while dis cussing problems with his fellow farmers. "This season we antici pated the worst. During wheat har vesting we faced acute shortage of farm labour. And you know neces sity is the mother of invention, so I experimented by modifying the wheat sowing machine enabling it to facilitate the sowing of paddy seeds without any sort of puddling and transplantation", he told HT.
Initially, he said, there were not many takers. However, the successful trial in his own fields, made people believe in his invention which later helped cultivate over 300 acres
‘Pandher's wonder' named after its founder Gurinder Singh Pandher, has not only reduced the cost of paddy cultivation by 70 per cent but has successfully grown paddy in dry fields, defying the notion that it is only a water plant.
"Paddy growers across the state, especially from Gurdaspur and Jalandhar, have been approaching me to buy the machine. But I want to first get it patented. So instead of selling the basic concept behind its mechanism I am offering free trials.", Pandher told HT.
Designing the machine cost him Rs 42,000. "In the present format it has endless advantages over traditional methods (see box) but I want to modify it so a single machine can be used to sow five crops including wheat , rice, maize, sunflower and potato on ridges", he added.
Pandher, who has a diploma in electrical engineering, while dis cussing problems with his fellow farmers. "This season we antici pated the worst. During wheat har vesting we faced acute shortage of farm labour. And you know neces sity is the mother of invention, so I experimented by modifying the wheat sowing machine enabling it to facilitate the sowing of paddy seeds without any sort of puddling and transplantation", he told HT.
Initially, he said, there were not many takers. However, the successful trial in his own fields, made people believe in his invention which later helped cultivate over 300 acres
