Studies On Mustard Based Intercropping System Under Rainfed Condition

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during two consecutive years of rabi 2016-17 and 2017-18 at Students Instructional Farm of the C. S. Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur to find out the effect of cropping systems and mulches on growth, yield, water use efficiency and economics of crops under rainfed condition. The soil of experimental field was sandy loam in texture with pH 7.9, 0.33% organic carbon, 0.032% total N, 168.2 kg ha-1 available N, 17.2 kg ha-1 available P2O5 and 169.5 kg ha-1 available K2O. The field capacity, wilting point and bulk density were 19.8%, 6.2% and 1.36 Mg m-3, respectively. The treatments comprised of 9 cropping systems i.e. (i) sole mustard, 50 cm apart (ii) sole chickpea, 30 cm apart (iii) sole lentil, 30 cm apart (iv) mustard + chickpea (1+1), additive series (v) mustard + chickpea (3:1), replacement series (vi) mustard + chickpea (3:2), replacement series (vii) mustard + lentil (1+1), additive series (viii) mustard + lentil (3:1), replacement series (ix) mustard + lentil (3:2), replacement series and 2 mulch practices i.e. (i) without dust mulch (ii) with dust mulch created by weeding and hoeing at 25 DAS were tested in Split plot design with 3 replications during the cource of investigation envisages. Results obtained that the growth and yield of individual crop depressed in additive intercropping, where depression was more in lentil than chickpea. The yields of mustard, chickpea and lentil were highest in their sole stands. The yield of sole and intercropped chickpea and lentil in terms of mustard equivalent seed yield showed significant variation, whereas mustard + chickpea (1+1) additive series brought out significantly the highest production as compared to other cropping systems. newline