DEVELOPMENT OF INNOVATIVE FARMING PRACTICES ADAPTABLE TO THE CHANGING CLIMATE
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Date
2015-07
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CSKHPKV, Palampur
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Diversification and intensification of existing maize-wheat cropping system on small,
undulating and marginal field with suitable resource conserving practices is the key answer for
increasing the profitability of hill farmers. Keeping in view, an experiment with two tillage
methods viz., minimum/zero tillage and conventional tillage and three cropping systems viz.,
maize-wheat, baby corn+frenchbean-pea-summer squash and maize+soybean-gobhi sarson+toria
in main plot and two mulch treatments viz., no mulch and crop residue mulch, and two fertilizer
treatments viz., recommended dose of fertilizers (RDF) and 75 per cent RDF+25 per cent N
through FYM in sub-plot was conducted at Palampur, during kharif 2012– rabi 2014. The results
showed that conventional tillage resulted in significantly higher maize grain equivalent yield
{MGEY (11.2%)}, food availability round the year (13.9%), productivity of the system (11.2%),
gross returns (10.6%), net returns (17.3%) and B: C ratio (12.4%) as compared to zero tillage.
Among cropping systems, baby corn+frenchbean-pea-summer squash gave highest MGEY
(190.7%), food availability round the year (182.1%), productivity of the system (190.5%), gross
returns (121.0%), net return (176.4%) and B: C ratio (64.1%) over the traditional maize-wheat
cropping system. Similarly, maize+soybean-gobhi sarson+toria recorded higher MGEY(28.6%),
productivity of the system (28.5%), gross returns (14.1%), net return (18.8%) and B: C ratio
(8.97%) over maize-wheat cropping system. Significantly higher MGEY (7.4%), food availability
round the year (7.5%), productivity of the system (7.5%) and gross returns (6.1%) was recorded
with application of crop residue mulch as comapred to no mulch. Similarly, integrated nutrient
management recorded significantly higher MGEY (4.3%), food availability round the year (4.3%)
and gross returns (4.4%) over recommended dose of fertilizers. Under zero tillage conditions,
crop residue mulch produced MGEY which was significantly at par to conventional tillage with
mulching. Again, zero tilled baby corn+frenchbean-pea-summer squash with mulch was as good
as conventional tilled baby corn+frenchbean-pea-summer squash without mulch. This clearly
indicates that mulching in case of zero tillage is good enough to save moisture for sowing and
later in the season and conventional tillage under mulch conditions can be avoided.
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