Preceding winter season crops and residue management practices on root: shoot characters,yield and economics of succeeding pearlmillet under no-ill tilled semi-arid ecosystem

Abstract

Conservation agriculture practices,such as no-tillage with residue recycling is a very popular feasible approach to increase the productivity and resource-use efficiency under rainfed ecosystem. A field experiment wasaccomplished at IARI, Pusa, NewDelhi toidentify suitable pearl millet based cropping systems mainly with wheat, chickpea and mustardalongwith the organic mulches,viz.no residues, crop residues and Leucaenatwigs applied to both summer and winter season crops grown in sequence during 2010–2011 and 2011-2012. Both rainy- and winter-season crops were grown rainfedunder no-till following commonrecommended package of practices.Higher root length density (RLD), root surface area (RSA), root volume density (RVD), average root diameter (RD) and crop growth rate (CGR), relative growth (RGR) rate and net assimilation rate (NAR)were recorded in pearl millet grown after chickpea with crop residues, followed by Leucaena twigs.Pearl milletrecordedsignificantly highergrain yield with application of Leucaenatwigs in 2010, but produced comparatively higheryield with crop residuesin 2011. Pearl millet produced significantly higher grain yield (1.61 t ha-1) after pearl millet- chickpea,followed by pearl millet - mustard (1.38 t ha-1) and pearl millet - wheat (1.28 t ha-1) cropping systems. The crop residueprovided significantly higher grain yield (1.95 t ha-1) under pearl millet- chickpea, followed by that under pearl millet- chickpea with Leucaenatwigs (1.56 t ha-1). The nutrient uptake showed the same trend as that of grain and stover yield, and recorded significant interaction effect for N uptake only for pearl millet grain. The economic analysis exhibited the highest returns under pearl millet withLeucaena twigs in 2010, and with crop residues under pearl millet- chickpea, followed by Leucaena twigs mulching under pearl millet- chickpea systems in 2011. It was concluded that pearl millet-chickpea cropping systems with crop residue and Leucaena twigs mulching was beneficial for achieving higher productivity and profitability of pearl millet under no-till semi-arid conditions. Key words: No-till, Pearl millet, Preceding winter crops, Residue management, Semi-arid