Enhancing farm income and system productivity in soybean-lentil through land configuration, conservation tillage, seed priming and mulching under rainfed Central India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59797/jfl.v33i1.624Keywords:
Economics, Land configuration, Mulching, Priming, Rainfed, Soybean-lentil, TillageAbstract
Soybean {Glycine max (L.) Merr.} is adapted to Central India because of congenial growing conditions attuned to climate and soil condition of the region. However, the crop is losing its sheen due to low productivity of crop, biotic and abiotic stresses, non-availability of critical inputs especially quality seeds besides others. Therefore, besides a good genotype, improved agronomy is pre-requisite for bridging the existing yield gaps considerably. Better land configuration under heavy clayey soils during rainy season and conservation tillage enabled microclimate associated with suitable agrotechnologies during winter season could serve as a boon to exploit genetic potential of dominant crops grown in the rainfed situation here. Therefore, improved crop management practice such as broad bed furrow (BBF), conservation tillage especially during winter season along with seed priming and mulching could go a long way to harness better land and crop productivity of popular crop/ cropping system adapted in this agro-ecology. Thus, field studies were carried out during 2015-17 at ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Regional Station, Bhopal on a clay loam vertisol to evaluate the effect of these agrotechnologies individually and in combination on crop productivity and farm income in soybean-lentil cropping system. It revealed that BBF plots had higher productivity during rainy (soybean with 12.9%), winter (lentil with 17.9%) and both the seasons together (with 15.3% increase in system productivity of soybean-lentil) in these heavy soils of Central India as evident during 2015-16. Similar values (20.3, 6.8 and 14.2%, respectively) in respect of superiority of BBF plots were observed during 2016-17 also. Grain yield of lentil (27.7 and 25.1%) and total productivity of soybean-lentil (13.1 and 16.0%) were improved significantly following seed priming along with mulching of soybean crop residues in lentil over that in control (without seed priming) during 2015-16 and 2016-17, respectively. Net returns accrued for both lentil (19.3 and 33.1%) and total system productivity (17.3 and 16.8%) were also in favour of these (BBF and priming with mulching) treatments during 2015-16. Similar trend was observed during 2016-17 (with corresponding values of 8.6 and 6.2% for BBF, and 28.8 and 36.6% for priming combined with mulching, respectively). Crop response to conservation tillage (zero versus reduced) was also influenced by climatic condition including rainfall events, soil type/ condition and cropping history/season. The study suggested that in soybean-lentil, appropriate land configuration (BBF) in soybean during rainy season followed by seed priming (for 4 hours) of lentil amalgamated with mulching of soybean crop residues (with additional advantages of moisture conservation/extended water availability) during winter could be useful for scaling up both crop productivity and farm income in the heavy soils of Central India under rainfed condition.
References
Gangwar B and Prasad Kamta 2005. Cropping system management for mitigation of second-generation problems in agriculture. Indian Journal of Agricultura1 Sciences 75(2): 65-78.
Jat Ram Lal and Praharaj CS. 2018.Impact of zinc and molybdenum with manure in soybean-chickpea system in vertisols of Central India. Journal of Food Legumes 28(3): 147-153.
Praharaj CS, Kumar Rajesh, Akram M, Jha UC, Singh Ummed, Kumar Narendra, Singh SS and Singh SK. 2015. Dissemination of pulses production technologies for enhancing profitability of farmers in Uttar Pradesh. Journal of Food Legumes 28(2): 157-61.
Praharaj CS, Singh Ummed, Singh SS and Kumar N. 2017a. Microirrigation in rainfed pigeonpea-Upscaling productivity under Eastern Gangetic Plains with suitable land configuration, population management and supplementary fertigation at critical stages. Current Science 112(1): 95-107.
Praharaj CS, Singh Ummed, Singh SS and Kumar N. 2018. Tactical water management in field crops: the key to resource conservation. Current Science 115(7): 1262-1269.
Praharaj CS and Blaise D. 2016. Intercropping: An approach for area expansion of pulses. Indian Journal of Agronomy (4th IAC Special issue) 61: S113-S121.
Praharaj CS, Singh SS, Jat RL, Singh Ummed, Singh NP, Elanchezhian R and Singh RP 2017b. Pulses based systems for sustaining soybean in Central India. Indian Farming 67(05): 02-05.
Ramesh P, Panwar NR and Singh AB. 2010. Crop productivity, soil fertility and economics of soybean (Glycine max), chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and blond psyllium (Plantago ovata) under organic nutrient management practices. Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences 80(11): 965–9.
Singh NP, Praharaj CS, Singh SS, Jat Ram Lal, Singh Ummed, Singh RP and Elanchezhian R. 2016.Sustaining soybean system in Central India with Pulses. ICAR NEWS 22(3): 1-3.
Singh Ramadhar, Singh Karan and Bhandarkar, DM. 2014. Estimation of water requirement for soybean (Glycine max) and wheat (Triticum aestivum) under vertisols of Madhya Pradesh. Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences 84(2): 190–7.
Singh Ummed, Praharaj CS, Singh SS, Hazra KK and Kumar N. 2018. Up-scaling nutrient, energy and system productivity of pigeonpea-wheat cropping system in Indo-Gangetic plains of India. Journal of Environmental Biology 39: 647-658.
Praharaj CS and Dhingra KK. 2001. Growth, productivity and BNF in soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) under Bradyrhizobium inoculation, pendimethalin and nitrogen schedules and their residual effect on succeeding wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) crop. Indian Journal of Agronomy 46(4): 635-642.
