New Delhi, Oct 4 (PTI) The Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) has said the results of the trials of bio-decomposers conducted in the state last year are not "very encouraging".

Bio-decomposers are microbial solutions which, their manufacturers claim, can turn stubble into manure in 15-20 days and prevent farm fires.

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The Delhi government has hailed the Pusa bio-decomposer, developed by scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), as a cost-effective solution to the problem of stubble burning.

On September 15, the governments of Delhi and Punjab announced that the Pusa bio-decomposer will be used on 5,000 acres of land in the agrarian state to prevent stubble burning on a "trial basis".

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The announcement came a few days after the Centre rejected their request to help them provide cash incentives to farmers in Punjab for not burning paddy straw.

Bio-decomposers were used in 7,000 acres of area during the 2021 Kharif season. The results of the trials "are not very encouraging", according to a presentation made by PPCB Member-Secretary Krunesh Garg at a workshop organised by Delhi-based Climate Trends in Chandigarh on Monday.

Experts from the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) had earlier told PTI that they had conducted trials of several bio-decomposers, including the one prepared by the IARI, in 2020 and 2021 and submitted a report to the state government, saying "there is no considerable reduction in the time taken to decompose the stubble and the impact on the yield is non-significant".

"In the year 2020-21, two bio-decomposers were evaluated at five locations. All experiments were done as per the guidelines of the IARI, but the overall decomposition was not significant," according to the presentation made by Garg.

He also said it will take four to five years to properly resolve the stubble-burning issue.

The official said crop diversification is not a long-term solution to the issue because it does not mean that biomass will not be produced by other crops.

"It will just be another kind of biomass waste, like cotton sticks, mustard straw waste etc. Issues with respect to (stubble) burning will always remain. So we need to find solutions, both in-situ and ex-situ. A combination of these can only be effective," Garg said.

He also said counting the number of farm fires is an inaccurate measure of ascertaining the scale of stubble burning and that the acreage of land being put on fire is the parameter to be applied.

"It is not that the problem is not being addressed, we are mapping it down to the block and village level, but it will take four-five years for proper resolution," Garg said.

The area under paddy cultivation in Punjab has increased from 29.61 lakh hectares last year to 31.13 lakh hectares this year.

This would result in the generation of 19.76 million ton of paddy straw this year as compared to 18.74 MT last year.

According to Mahesh Narang, the head of the PAU's farm engineering department, the usual method for the in-situ management of stubble involves a chopper machine, light irrigation and a rotavator.

A rotavator is a tractor-driven machine that mechanically pulverises cuts and mixes and levels the soil in a single pass.

"Using this method (chopper-irrigation-rotavator), farmers can decompose paddy straw in sandy soil in 10-12 days and in medium soil in up to 21 days," Narang said.

The use of bio-decomposers involves spraying of the microbial solution, a rotavator for proper mixing of the solution with straw and light irrigation to ensure moisture in the field.

"Both the processes are almost similar, take almost the same time to decompose stubble and incorporate it into the soil. Farmers do not opt for a bio-decomposer as it increases their expenditure (cost of decomposer and spraying)," Narang said.

He said the trials conducted on bio-decomposers "ultimately found that their impact on the yield is non-significant".

Along with unfavourable meteorological conditions, paddy straw burning in Punjab and Haryana is a major reason behind the alarming spike in air pollution levels in the national capital in October and November. Farmers set their fields on fire to quickly clear off the crop residue before cultivating wheat and potato.

According to the IARI, Punjab had reported 71,304 farm fires between September 15 and November 30 last year and 83,002 farm fires in the corresponding period in 2020.

Last year, the share of farm fires in Delhi's PM2.5 pollution had peaked to 48 per cent on November 7.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)