Panchagavya - Organic Fertilizer

This article is mainly for millions of people like us, who want to grow chemical and pest free, organic crops in their garden. World is becoming conscious of food miles. In the United Kingdom food travels 2400km before reaching plate. We can play our part in saving the planet by growing food in our garden. Imagine a world where only organic crops are grown, imagine yourself gorging on a freshly grown vegetable. When this dream comes true, there we have a healthy planet, healthy people.

Everyone with a windowsill can contribute to this dream. Just by keeping a humble mint plant in your windowsill, you could enjoy organic mint on your curries and save at least £15 per year. I am going to share my experience and explore ways to achieve this dream with everyone's collective ideas.

Being a first generation farmer, I am finding my feet on organically producing fertilisers and pesticides for my own farm mainly to enrich the soil conditions, promote plant growth, increase the amount of earthworms, bees and provide a b etter immunity to the plant.

This blog is mainly to guide and share my experience for those living outside India, who want to try our way of growing traditional organic vegetables, fruits and flowers in their garden, allotment and farms. This will not only bring back our farming traditions, but it helps the ecosystem from being polluted.

Honestly, I am writing a blog for the first time. I have tried to cover the whole aspects of Panchagavya practices and alternatives that are suitable for outside Indian conditions, methods, composition, benefits and additional health aspects.

Before going deep into the details, I would recommend involving your kids into Panchagavya making and gardening. This will open them to a new world of microorganisms that is invisible but coexist with us. I know it is a difficult process, during this course, I am sure they will learn how much a cow can contribute to a plant's life cycle. Also they will learn the value of organic food, hygiene and health. They will also learn to use the cow waste that can be converted into most natural, eco-friendly fertiliser, pesticide with medicinal benefits that could solve many problems for both humans and animals.

Let’s get into the Panchagavya!

Pancha means 5 and gavya means substance obtained mainly from Indian bred Cows. It is a combination of 5 products from mainly Indian bred cows such as milk, natural bio yogurt, cow dung, cow’s urine and ghee in a proper ratio that allows it to ferment, and the end product is known as Panchagavya. An organic product has the potential to play an eminent role in promoting growth and providing immunity in the plant system and these have incredible effects.

Recently in conference with Dr. Natarajan (who demostrated the Panchagavya), suggested to use any cow for those who do not have access to the Indian breeds. However it is 30% less effective compared to the Indian cows. 

On this positive note, let's explore creating the Panchagavya with alternative options suitable for outside Indian conditions with reference to Dr. Natarajan's method. Create a garden community in your area through various social media such as whatsapp, Facebook, etc. This will help you in creating a healthy garden group and friends to share the efforts to prepare Panchagavya. You can also share your queries, advice and experiences this way. A group of people from our garden community, including me, have initiated the process of the Panchagavya trail. I will try to create the journey experience, challanges, people support, project plan and cost during this process.  

In Simple words, Panchagavya is mainly for promoting growth hormones, boosting immunity, a higher yield and creating disease-free crops. 

A glance on the history

Dr. Natarajan has studied the effects of Panchagavya for decades and has used it across India to treat plants, animals and human beings. He says that the basic preparation should be fine tuned for maximum efficiency. He has already won the  prestigious Srishti award for his bio pesticide (ease of preparation and lack of side effects)  and has made excellent immunity boosters for cattle. He has two herbal medicines for diabetes and arthritis. 

 

Panchgavya has come a long way from 1998. Later Dr. G. Nammalvar was an Indian green crusader, agricultural scientist, environmental activist and an organic farming expert best known for his work on spreading ecological farming and organic farming, taken to the farmers and increased the scale of the usage.

Panchagavya Materials

The raw materials list and the quantity needed to produce 20 litres of concentrated Panchagavya  are listed below.

I have given some alternative options for the people who do not have access Indian breed cows and Toody.  Mainly for Non Resident Indians to encourage exploring our traditional natural gardening.

Item Description	Quantity	Additional Information
Fresh Cow dung	5 Kgs	Make sure it is fresh and light green in colour. In case use any cow dung if you do not have access to the native Indian breed cows. Avoid using buffalo's dung.
Cow Urine	3 litres	Any old is very good. Any cow urine should be fine.
Organic Milk	2 litres	Use the boiled milk and wait until cold. You can get this from any super market store.
Yogurt Bio-natural	2 litres	Better if you can make it at home. By using the Indian bacterial culture.Do not use the creamy or greek style yogurts. Otherwise buy bio-natural yogurts from super market
Tender coconut water	3 litres	If native tender coconut is unavailable then use the canned products from the shop. (e.g. Vita Coco Natural Coconut Water).
Ghee	½ Kg	Melt the ghee in the Sun or low heat.
Banana	12 Nos	More effective if it’s well ripped.
Jaggery or Sugarcane juice	1 Kg	Use dark Jaggery. Avoid light or white coloured jaggery.
Fermented rice water	3 litres	Prepare the Fermented rice by mixing the cooked rice with water and leave it for 3 days. (a.k.a Pazhaya Soru water in Tamil). After 3 days filter the water without rice and add it to the solution. This will increase the fermentation process.
Plastic container with lid	40 litres	Container should be clean and chemical free. Do not use any metal container due to its acidity in nature.
Cloth	2 x 1 meter	Cloth to cover the drum
Bamboo or Hard Wooden Stick	6 to 8 feet	A 6 to 8 feet strong stick to mix the solution.
Disposable gloves	2 Nos	As per your need. This is not mandatory.
Measuring Cup	1	Mostly helps to measure the items. This is not mandatory.

For an individual 20 litres is enough for the whole year to manage a smaller to larger garden. Approximately, for a 20-member size of community, this can be used for 2 to 3 months issue 1 litre of concentrated solution. This can be later mixed with 35 litres of water and use it.

Mostly in the western countries, water from tap will have more chlorine content. Probably collect the necessary water by 2 days before in a vessel. So that you can take the water from the top of the vessel to avoid more chlorine content.

Panchagavya - Preparation

Panchagavya requires 18 days of simple efforts to get the full matured state.  Below are the simple schedule and tasks to make your own Panchagavya.

Day(s)	Task(s)
Day before the Preparation	Make sure the plastic container, lid and stick are cleaned throughly.
1	Mix fresh cow dung and ghee thoroughly in the drum and covered with cloth and drum cover and leave it for 3 days. ** Please keep the container always under a shady area and do not expose to Sun for the entire of the Panchagavya.
4	Add the following into the container Mix jaggery with 3 litres of water and dilute it. Cow Urine Milk Yogurt Tender Coconut water Remove the banana peel and squeeze it through with hand Mix all togather throughly and close it first with the cloth and container lid.
5 - 18	Mix it well 2 times a day. morning and evening & close it tightly. Roughly with the stick 50 rotations clock/anti-clock sides
19	Panchagavya is ready.

Panchagavya - Nutrition Composition

Look at the mineral contents produced below from the Panchagavya by the natural process. This is purely made from cow waste without any harmful chemical contents. This was endorsed by Dr.Natarajan, Tamilnadu Agriculture department and other laboratories in Chennai, India. 

Nutrients Presence	Measurement of content
pH (Presence of Hydrogen)	5.45
EC (Electrical conductivity)	10.22
Total Nitrogen (ppm)	229 ppm
Total Phosphorous (ppm)	209 ppm
Total Potassium (ppm)	232 ppm
Sodium	90 ppm
Calcium	25 ppm
IAA (Indoleacetic acid)	8.5
GA (Gibberellins)	3.5
Fungi	38800/ml
Bacteria	1880000/ml
Lactobacillus	2260000/ml
Total anaerobes	10000/ml
Acid formers	360/ml
Methanogen	250/ml
Magnesium	840 ppm
Chloride	248.5 ppm
Boron	0.442 ppm
Manganese	14.8 ppm
Iron	142.5 ppm
Zinc	82 ppm
Copper	58 ppm
Sulphur	0.56 ppm

Mostly all the required supplements for the plants are chemical free and pest free.

Panchagavya - Applications

Panchagavya can be used for the plants by following the method as given below. 

👉Mostly water may have high chlorine contents outside of India. For better results, try to store the required water in a container before 2 days to reduce the chlorine impact in the Panchagavya diluted solution. 

Spray System

3% Panchagavya solution for most of the crops

• Use 300 ml of Panchagavya with 10 litres of water and spray in the plants leaf and steam. 2 % Panchagavya solution for crops like cucumber, mint, bottle gourd, snake gourd with soft leaves.

• 20 ml of Panchagavya with 1 litre of water and spray in the plants leaf and steam.

👉Once the solution is diluted, please filter the diluted solution with a cloth so that you have a free flow using the sprayer. Otherwise, the sprayer nozzle will get blocked. You do not need to filter, if you are planning to pour it in the roots directly. 

Flow Systems

3% Panchagavya solution for most of the crops

• Use 300 ml of Panchagavya with 10 litres of water and spray in the plants leaf and steam.

Seed - Seedling treatment

3% Panchagavya solution for seed and seedling treatment

Seed storage

3% Panchagavya solution to dip the seeds, dry and store it.

Maintainence

If you are keeping the Panchagavya for more period, please follow the below instruments to make Panchagavya active.

• Mostly we store the Panchagavya in plastic container.
• Keep this in a shaded area in the utility room, conservative, garden or outside.
• Keep the container slightly open (DO NOT CLOSE TIGHTLY) so that generated gas can go away and no insects gets inside the solution. The container may brust if you close it tight.
• Every two days once, Close the lid completely.
• Shake the container slightly for 1 or 2 minutes, so that it will create the circular motions to helps the organism active.
• Repeat the process until the solution is empty.

🕒 I keep a reminder every 2 days once in my mobile phone on my convenient time to perform this maintainance activity.   

Periodicity of application

Benefits and Beauty

Let us explore the major benefits and outcome of the Panchagavya in a higher level.

Plants Leaves

• Leaves become bigger

• Higher number of leaves

• Total leaf surface area increases

• More photosynthesis

• More Yield

Stems

• More side shoots

• Trunk becomes sturdy

• Bears more weight

• Branching is high

Roots

• Rooting is profuse and dense

• Remains fresh for longer time

• Grows into deeper layers of the soil

• Helps maximum intake of nutrients and water

• Hence more yield

Flowering Plants

• Exceptional aroma and fragrance.

• No incidents of budworm.

• Continuous flowering throughout the year.

Vegetables

• Yield enhancement by 18% and in few cases like cucumber, the yield is doubled.

• Wholesome vegetables with shiny and appealing skin.

• Extended shelf life.

• Very tasty with stronger flavours.

Harvesting and Yield

• Panchagavya restores yield levels of all crops in the first crop itself.
• Harvest is advanced by 15 days.
• Increases the weight of the produce.
• Enhances the shelf life of vegetables and fruits.
• Improves the taste, flavour and aroma.
• Increases sugar content in fruits by 25%.
• Increase the oil content in oil seeds by 25%.
• Gets more price in the market.

A higher form of Panchagavya for human beings

• Increases appetite and eliminates constipation.
• Purifies the blood and brings down cholesterol.
• Opens clogged arteries and improves circulation.
• Enhances immunity and prevents diseases.
• Highly effective for all diseases. (Diabetes, Cancers, heart diseases, arthritis, sinusitis, asthma, pepticulcer, irritable bowel syndrome, epilepsy, and sterility, obesity etc.
• Elevates the mood and leads to a sound sleep.
• Elder people can become brisker and more active.
• Retards the aging process and enhances longevity.

It is strongly recommended to discuss with the relevant health care practitioner before you consider to take-in.

I have referred many sources and added details in this blog for people to refer to, all in one single blog.  

I will try to create similar posts related to Gardening such as other ways of creating fertilisers, pest management, crops- 365 days in the extreme weather, tips, etc. If anyone is looking for specific aspects of the gardening, please subscribe and provide your comments below. I will try to create posts for you and to your liking. 

Hope you have enjoyed and understood the end to   end aspects of Panchagavya. As recommended, try to work with a smaller group and start to discover about our traditional way of gardening by yourself, or with family and friends.

I am happy to share my expirence and guide anyone who wants create Panchagavya for a community or individually. Please connect me by commenting to this blog or email me at sveeindia@gmail.com  

 

🙏🙏🙏 I wish you all good luck! 🙏🙏🙏