Influence of Organic Manuring on Sorghum: Greengram Intercropping at Different Row Ratios under Rainfed Condition

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during kharif season of 2017 at Soil Conservation and Water Management Farm of the Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur to find out effect of cropping systems and doses of FYM on growth, yield, water use efficiency, splash loss and economics of crops under rainfed condition. The treatments comprised of 4 cropping systems i.e. (i) sole sorghum, 45 cm apart (ii) sole greengram, 45 cm apart (iii) sorghum + greengram (2:1 ratio ) (iv) sorghum + greengram (3:1 ratio) and 3 doses of FYM i.e. (i) without FYM (ii) 10 t ha-1 (iii) 20 t ha-1 were tested in randomized block design with 3 replications. Results revealed that the yield of sorghum and greengram were highest in their sole stands. The yield of sole and intercropped greengram in terms of sorghum equivalent grain yield showed significant variation, whereas sorghum + greengram (2:1 ratio) brought out significantly the highest production as compared to other cropping systems. Moreover, the land equivalent ratio, water use efficiency, gross return and net return were also found to be the highest. Simultaneously, maximum splash loss was observed under sole sorghum and minimum under greengram treatment. Increasing rates of FYM brought out significant improvement in vegetative growth, yield attributes and grain / stover yield, where a dose of 10 t FYM/ha gave best performance in respect of vegetative growth, yield attributes and grain / stover yield. In addition, net return was also noticed higher, but splash loss was lower.