Crop and varietal diversification of rainfed rice based cropping systems for higher productivity and profitability in Eastern India

Abstract

Rice-rice system and rice fallows are no longer productive in Southeast Asia. Crop and varietal diversification of the rice based cropping systems may improve the productivity and profitability of the systems. Diversification is also a viable option to mitigate the risk of climate change. In Eastern India, farmers cultivate rice during rainy season (June–September) and land leftovers fallow after rice harvest in the post-rainy season (November–May) due to lack of sufficient rainfall or irrigation amenities. However, in lowland areas, sufficient residual soil moistures are available in rice fallow in the post-rainy season (November–March), which can be utilized for raising second crops in the region. Implementation of suitable crop/varietal diversification is thus very much vital to achieve this objective. To assess the yield performance of rice varieties under timely and late sown conditions and to evaluate the performance of dry season crops following them, three different duration rice cultivars were transplanted in July and August. In dry season several non-rice crops were sown in rice fallow to constitute a cropping system. The results revealed that tiller occurrence, biomass accumulation, dry matter remobilization, crop growth rate, and ultimately yield were significantly decreased under late transplanting. On an average, around 30% yield reduction obtained under late sowing may be due to low temperature stress and high rainfall at reproductive stages of the crop. Dry season crops following short duration rice cultivars performed better in terms of grain yield. In the dry season, toria was profitable when sown earlier and if sowing was delayed greengram was suitable. Highest system productivity and profitability under timely sown rice may be due to higher dry matter remobilization from source to sink. A significant correlation was observed between biomass production and grain yield. We infer that late transplanting decrease the tiller occurrence and assimilate remobilization efficiency, which may be responsible for the reduced grain yield.

Development of Alternate Cropping Pattern Against Tomato-Fallow- T. Aman Rice in Medium High Land of Dinajpur

“…Where, d1, d2 and d3 the duration of first, second and third crops of the pattern Production efficiency: Production efficiency values in terms of kg/ha/day were calculated by total production in a cropping sequence divided by total duration of crops in that sequence (Lal et al, 2017;Tomer and Tiwari, 1990). Y1 + Y2 + Y3 Production efficiency = d1 + d2 + d3 Where, Y1: Yield of 1 st crop Y2: Yield of 2 nd crop Y3: Yield of 3 rd crop d1= Duration of 1 st crop of the pattern d2= Duration of 2 nd crop of the pattern d3= Duration of 3 rd crop of the pattern…”

Development of Maize-T. Aus-T. Aman cropping pattern against Maize-Fallow-T. Aman rice

“…Net income was calculated by subtracting total expenditure from the gross income which was computed by dividing the gross income with total expenditure (Mahamood et al, 2016, Ferdous et al 2017c,d, 2018. Where d 1 , d 2 and d 3 the duration of 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd crop of the pattern Production efficiency value in terms of kg ha-1day-1was calculated by total main production a cropping pattern divided by total duration of crops in that pattern (Lal et al, 2017;Tomar and Tiwari, 1990).…”

“…For comparison between crop sequences, the yield of all crops was converted into rice equivalent on the basis of prevailing market prices of individual crop (Lal et al, 2017). Rice equivalent yield (REY) was computed as yield of individual crop multiplied by market price of that crop divided by market price of rice.…”

Profitability, energetics and GHGs emission estimation from rice-based cropping systems in the coastal saline zone of West Bengal, India

“…On the other hand, we have seen that the rice-fallow system non-significantly followed by ricelathyrus and rice-lentil systems recorded the lowest system productivity. Rice fallows, throughout South Asia, have been intensified with low water requiring pulse and oilseed crops [37]. But, the low system productivity of these systems might be due to several reasons viz.…”

“…The vice versa situation was witnessed in the ricefallow-fallow, rice-lathyrus-fallow and rice-sunflower systems. In West Bengal, about 37.2% area under wet season rice cultivation has a subsequent fallow period in the dry season [50] Such a fallow period often blamed to have lowered the system productivity and net profit [37]. Besides, such fallow systems can have high GWP as it emits even more N 2 O than cropped field [51], perhaps due to a decrease in soil organic carbon content, thereby reducing the C:N ratio in soil [10].…”