Long term effect of legume intensified crop rotations and tillage practices on productivity and profitability of maize vis-a-vis soil fertility in North-Western Indo-Gangetic Plains of India

Abstract

The present study was planned to evaluate the long term effect of legume intensified maize based crop rotations and tillage practices on productivity, profitability of maize vis-a-vis soil health. The experiment consisted of three tillage practices i.e. zero tillage (ZT), permanent bed (PB) and conventional tillage (CT) as main plot treatments and four crop rotations (MWMb; maize-wheat-mungbean, MCS; maize-chickpea-Sesbania, MMuMb; maize-mustard-mungbean, MMS; maizemaize-Sesbania) as sub plot treatments. Results revealed that ZT and PB resulted into significantly (P<0.05) improvement in grain (7.7-14.2%) and stover yield (7.4-13.0%) of maize over CT. Similarly, maize grain and stover yield were invariably higher in MCS and MWMb systems compared to MMuMb and MMS rotations. The total soil carbon (TSC) content increased by 15.4-17.4 and 20.32-20.91% with ZT and PB over CT in 0-15 and 15-30 cm soil depths, respectively. However, MCS and MWMb rotations registered 11.3-18.0% (0-15 cm) and 8.4-11.0% (15-30 cm) higher TSC over MMuMb rotation. Similarly, ZT and PB resulted into significantly (P<0.05) improvement in available soil nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) compared to CT. ZT/PB under MCS crop rotations registered higher net returns and BC ratio compared to rest of the treatment combinations. Interaction effect of tillage and crop rotations were significant (P<0.05) for stover yield, net returns, BC ratio and TSC and all these parameters were reported maximum with ZT-MCS. Thus, the present study suggests that CA based crop management practices can be advocated as sustainable intensification strategy in northwestern India.

Crop diversification of predominant Pearl millet based cropping system for higher productivity, resource-use efficiency and profitability in Semi-Arid Rajasthan

“…Incidentally, highest available K was registered in groundnut-wheat-cluster bean-rabi onion sequence, which could be attributed to K fertilization of the onion crop. Our results of improved soil fertility with inclusion of legumes in cereals based rotations were in close agreement with the finding of Yadav et al (2017a) and Yadav et al (2017b).…”

“…Crop diversification has been recognized as an effective strategy for achieving the objectives of food security, nutrition security, income growth, poverty alleviation, and employment generation, judicious use of land and water resources, sustainable agricultural development and environmental improvement (Yadav et al, 2017b). Diversification of pearl millet-wheat based system to increase productivity per unit resource and fulfilling basic needs for pulses, cereals, oilseeds and medicinal and regulating farm income, with standing weather aberrations, controlling price fluctuation, ensuring balanced food supply, conserving natural resources reducing the chemical fertilizer and pesticide loads ensuring environmental safety and creating employment opportunity (Gill and Ahlawat, 2006;Yadav et al, 2017a). In the era of a shrinking land resource base, water and energy resource use efficiency are important for the suitability of a cropping system (Yadav, 2002).…”

Conservation Agriculture Based Tillage Options for Rabi Crops Cultivation in Eastern India: Effects on Productivity and Profitability

“…These increments in net returns were mainly due to non-requirement of preparatory tillage unlike in CT where 4-5 tillage operations were performed before sowing of crops. Similar results pertaining to the tillage system were also reported by many researchers (Yadav et al, 2017;Parihar et al, 2016;Singh et al, 2014).…”

Impact of legume intensified crop rotations and tillage practices on maize productivity vis-à-vis C and N dynamics of a sandy loam soil in north-western Indo-Gangetic Plains of India

“…The major factors responsible for aforesaid challenges of RWCR are: (a) intensive use of highly mechanized CT practices since green revolution era causing serious soil physico-chemical and biological degradation (Prasad, 2005;Yadav et al, 2017); (2) continual cultivation of high water requiring rice crop that leads to alarmingly receding of ground water table (Mahajan et al, 2012); and (3) irrational production practices (cultivation of cereal after cereal without inclusion of pulses) resulted in declined system productivity and resource-use-efficiency as a whole (Pooniya et al, 2012 andParihar et al, 2016). Therefore, there is a dire need that the traditional RWCR needs to be replaced by location-specific diversified cropping systems so as to sustain the farm productivity and profitability and farm livelihoods, conserve natural resource-base, and reduce farm and environmental risks (Aggarwal et al, 2006).…”