Koriya Forest Division all set for plantation through clay seed balls
   Date :01-Jun-2019
By Tanisha Salwan
RAIPUR
For the first time in State, the Koriya Forest Division is geared up to transform the old traditional ways of plantation. In the new initiative, the department is all set to grow plants through clay seed balls to end the use of plastic in plantation.
 
 
Seed balls prepared in nurseries. 
 
The Division has taken up the charge of saving environment by the new initiative. The initiative started by newly-posted Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Manish Kashyap, if yields good results, will be considered as a milestone in the history of State.
 
Under the new initiative, balls of banyan seeds, peepal seeds and seeds of other plants are being prepared in the nurseries. The seed balls will be thrown at places where there are no trees and after touched with raindrops, the seeds will start germinating. The department has already taken the decisions related to the places where the seed balls are supposed to be thrown.
 
Koriya DFO Kashyap informed that it is just for an experiment, only 15,000 seed balls are being prepared at the nurseries. He further added that the initiative might result in yielding good results because of its low budget. Seed balls can result in growing any plant whether they are the wild trees, semi wild trees, and fruit bearing trees or any other. Under this technique, the plant’s growth is not affected by shadows, which will help in growing more and more trees in lesser space.
 
According to information, the work of making seed balls is carried out at war-footing in all nurseries under the Koriya Forest Division. For testing, the seed balls will be thrown at vacant lands and photography will be done before and after throwing balls, so as to check whether the technique is working or not.
 
If the initiative yields good results, then it will be carried out on larger scale. It is worth mentioning here that with the help of these seed balls, there is no need of going inside the forest or the place where trees are to be grown as the seeds can be thrown from outside. These can also be thrown by slingshot catapults by proper aiming. There is a larger probability that this technique might yield good results because of its low cost as compared to the old ways of planting trees. The most important point is that this technique does not involve usage of plastic. The seed balls are covered with charcoal due to which no animal would even pass-by it and soon after being touched by raindrops, the seeds will start germinating. Unlike the scientific techniques of growing plants that not only pollutes soil and air but also results in drought like situations, this technique will lead to totally opposite results.
 
A seed ball is a seed covered in the layer of clay or any other compost, then dried. It uses clay which is mostly used in making utensils and clay sculptures and is commonly found in rivers and ponds. Clay is a compost of very good quality and is finely-grained. Because of its small particle size of day soils, the structure of clay soil tends to be very dense and results in strongly bonding the seeds in it. Seed balls prevents the process of tillage and other old ways of plantation but encourages natural ways to convert the deserted areas into verdure. When we talk about seed balls, it is very important to know about the person who has invented the seed balls. This technique was invented by a Japanese farmer and Philosopher Masanobu Fukuoka. His techniques were said to be more productive and qualitative as compared to his contemporary counterparts. After him, 43 year old Teddy Kenyanjui of Kenya started using the same technique for farming and gave it a name seed balls.