Crop establishment techniques for improving soil properties and productivity of chickpea (Cicer aertinum L.)

Roy, R. and Singh, A. (2012) Crop establishment techniques for improving soil properties and productivity of chickpea (Cicer aertinum L.). Journal of Food Legumes, 25 (3). pp. 237-239.

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Abstract

A field experiment on chickpea followed after rice was conducted in a sandy loam soil with medium fertility at the Research Farm, Department of Agronomy, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana during Rabi 2007–08 for assessing the effect of crop establishment techniques on soil properties, seed yield and economics of chickpea varieties. The treatments comprising of 6 levels of crop establishment techniques in main plots and 4 varieties in sub plots were laid out in a split plot design with three replications. Chickpea yield remained unaffected due to different crop establishment techniques and was indicative of the fact that the frequency of tillage could be reduced without compromising on chickpea yield. Conventional tillage + straw incorporated plots had the lowest bulk density (1.53 g/cm3), highest cumulative infiltration rate at 60 minutes (16.38 cm/h) and highest root mass density (1927 g/m3) over the bed planted plots. Zero and reduced tillage enhanced soil availability of N, P and K at the crop harvest. The bulk of the root mass was mostly confined to 60 cm soil depth except that of ‘BG 1053’ (limited to upper 30 soil). Reduced and zero tillage raised profit margin ( 1400–2650/ha) from the crop over conventional and bed planting as these saved both time (3.20 5.28 h/ha) and fuel (12.52–21.12 L of diesel/ha) for seed bed preparation.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Bed planting, Chickpea, Conventional tillage, Economics, Zero tillage.
Author Affiliation: Department of Agronomy, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141004, Punjab, India
Subjects: Soil Science and Microbiology
Crop Improvement
Divisions: Chickpea
Depositing User: Mr. SanatKumar Behera
Date Deposited: 24 Oct 2012 12:26
Last Modified: 24 Oct 2012 12:26
Official URL: http://www.indianjournals.com/ijor.aspx?target=ijo...
URI: http://eprints.icrisat.ac.in/id/eprint/8513

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