Comparative performance of organic and inorganic farming practices on productivity of different cropping systems

Abstract

The experiment was laid out in split plot design with three farming practices in main plots and four cropping systems as in subplots with three replications. Among farming practices, organic farming practice resulted in significantly higher MGEY (7571.40 kg ha-1) and production efficiency (20.74 kg ha-1 day-1) over inorganic farming practice.Organic farming practice remaining at par with integrated farming practice resulted in significantly higher uptake of N, P, K and protein yield over inorganic farming practice. Organic and integrated farming practice outperformed inorganic farming practice in improving various soil properties. At the conclusion of the experiment, a reduction of 7.2% in bulk density was recorded under organic farming practice while inorganic farming practice resulted in an increase of 1.6% over its initial value. Soil organic carbon and microbial biomass carbon increased by 30 and 53%, respectively under organic farming practice while, inorganic farming practice resulted in a decrease of microbial biomass carbon by 1.06% over its initial value. Organic farming practice resulted in an increase of about 24, 50 and 28% inavailable N, P and K, respectively over its initial value while, its corresponding values under inorganic farming practice were 15, 35 and 20%. In the absence of premium pricing and comparatively lower yields of cereal crops under organic farming practice the inorganic farming practice resulted in higher net returns and benefit: cost ratio to that of organic farming practice. Legume based mash gram cropping system improved the soil fertility status with respect to available N, P, K and soil physical and biological properties over all other cropping systems. While, maize wheat and mash wheat cropping systems remaining at par with each other resulted in significantly highest MGEY, production efficiency and net returns but benefit: cost ratio was significantly highest under mash wheat cropping systemsover all other cropping systems. newline