The One-Straw Revolution_ An Introduction to Natural Farming - Masanobu Fukuoka [24]
Travelling along the Tokaido line in western Japan I have noticed that the straw is being cut more coarsely than when I first started talking about spreading it uncut. I have to give the farmers credit. But the modern day experts are still saying that it is best to use only so many hundred pounds of straw per quarter acre. Why don't they say to put all the straw back in the field? Looking out the train window, you can see farmers who have cut and scattered about half the straw and cast the rest aside to rot in the rain.
If all the farmers in Japan got together and started to put all the straw back on their fields, the result would be an enormous amount of compost returned to the earth.
Threshing the crop with the traditional pedal-powered rotating drum (Kyoto). The grains are then winnowed and stored; the straw is returned to the fields.
Germination
For hundreds of years farmers have taken great care in preparing the seed beds for growing strong, healthy rice seedlings. The small beds were tidied up as if they were the family altars. The earth was cultivated, sand and the ashes of burned rice hulls were spread all around, and a prayer was offered that the seedlings would thrive.
It is not unreasonable, then, that the other villagers around here thought I was out of my mind to broadcast seed while the winter grain was still standing in the field, with weeds and bits of decomposing straw scattered everywhere.
Of course the seeds germinate well when sown directly onto a well-turned field, but if it rains and the field turns to mud, you cannot go in and walk around, and the sowing must be postponed. The non-cultivation method is safe on this score, but on the other hand, there is trouble with small animals such as moles, crickets, mice, and slugs who like to eat the seeds. The clay pellet enclosing the seed solves this problem.
In seeding winter grain, the usual method is to sow the seeds and then cover them with soil. If the seeds are set in too deeply, they will rot. I used to drop the seeds into tiny holes in the soil, or into furrows without covering them with soil, but I experienced many failures with both methods.
Lately I have gotten lazy and instead of making furrows or poking holes in the ground, I wrap the seeds in clay pellets and toss them directly onto the field. Germination is best on the surface, where there is exposure to oxygen. I have found that where these pellets are covered with straw, the seeds germinate well and will not rot even in years of heavy rainfall.
Straw Helps to Cope with Weeds and Sparrows
Ideally, one quarter acre will provide about 900 pounds of barley straw. If all of the straw is spread back over the field, the surface will be completely covered. Even a troublesome weed such as crabgrass, the most difficult problem in the direct seeding non-cultivation method, can be held under control.
Sparrows have caused me a lot of headaches. Direct seeding cannot succeed if there is no reliable way to cope with the birds, and there are many places where direct seeding has been slow to spread for just this reason. Many of you may have the same problem with sparrows, and you will know what I mean.
I can remember times when these birds followed right behind me and devoured all the seeds I had sown even before I had a chance to finish planting the other side of the field. I tried scarecrows and nets and strings of rattling cans, but nothing seemed to work very well. Or if one of these methods happened to work, its effectiveness did not last more than a year or two.
My own experience has shown that by sowing the seed while the preceding crop is still in the field so that they are hidden among grasses and clover, and by spreading a mulch of rice, rye, or barley straw as soon as the mature crop has been harvested, the problem of sparrows can be dealt with most effectively.
I have made a lot of mistakes while experimenting over the