Quinoa farming guide

The exceptional nutritional attributes of quinoa and its adaptability to different environmental conditions have made possible its worldwide cultivation. An example of this is the interesting experience of Manoj Upadhyaya, a quinoa grower of India, who has wanted to share his story and his quinoa farming guide. 

Who Am I?

My name is Manoj Upadhyaya

email: manojl.upadhyaya@gmail.com 

Country - INDIA

I am a software engineer and currently working as a Manager in a big IT services company in India. I am from an agriculture background family. But till 3 years back, did not put any effort or keen interest in farming. 

I belong to a place called Paratwada (Dist. Amravati) at Maharashtra, a region which is famous for oranges but at the same time making entry in Indian media for unfortunate event of farmers facing financial crisis due to non-profitable farming, debts etc. This made me to think about what the educated people can contribute in terms of coming up with ideas for profitable farming, innovative farming, new areas in farming, something out of the box. 

What did I do? 

My search has accidently introduced me with Quinoa while watching a TV show about recipes. The host was making a quinoa recipe and at the same time passed on little but very interesting information about quinoa. 

I decided to surrender myself to Google search engine and get more information about quinoa grain. 

After going through the available information on Google I decided to start experiments on quinoa farming. But only challenge and barrier was about seeds availability. I tried at least for 4 months to procure seeds. I communicated with people in USA, Turkestan, and India and many more. And finally could procure seeds.

I started experiment in small pots in my flat balcony, my native place bungalow, and front yard, back yard, in nursery bags and on play grounds. I experimented plantation and direct sowing techniques, as well as deferred irrigation, heavy irrigation, very low irrigation and without irrigation. I performed experiments in winter season, summer season and rainy season. I have gathered and recorded all the inputs during one year. 

After analyzing all the data collected, I was able to derive the best practices for quinoa farming. Once getting assured about the best practice for quinoa farming, I have started actual quinoa farming in 2 acre land and got a decent success in my venture. 

Summerising my experience in a quinoa farming guide with the hope that it will prove helpful for all thoses who are interested in quinoa farming. 

About this Guide

This reference guide based on my own experiences with quinoa farming and I hope it will be helpful to all. May this guide should serve the purpose of providing right path for quinoa cultivation and may this bring success to all of us. 

This document covers following aspect of quinoa farming and cultivation which are based on my experiences. 

• Soil selection

• Farm bed preparation

• Sowing Method

• Fertilization schedule

• Irrigation schedule

• Plant growth.

• Periodic observations Insects and pests control

• Weeding schedule

• Crop cutting 

• threshing and Seed separation

• Financial aspect

• Assumption and desclaimers 

• Miscellaneous and references 

Currently I am in a process of securing intellectual property protection for this guide as I put efforts, time and lot of suffering my family had to go through as I could not spend any week end with them for an year.