Evaluation of post-rainy season crops with residual soil moisture and different tillage methods in rice fallow of eastern India

Abstract

In eastern India, farmers grow rice during rainy season (June–September) and land remains fallow after rice harvest in the post-rainy season (November–May) due to lack of sufficient rainfall or irrigation facilities. But in lowland areas of eastern India, sufficient carry-over residual soil moistures are available in rice fallow in the post-rainy season (November–March), which can be utilized for growing second crops in the region. During the post-rainy season when irrigation facilities are not available and rainfall is meager, effective utilization of carry-over residual soil moisture and conservation agriculture become imperative for second crop production after rice. Implementation of suitable tillage/seeding methods and other agro-techniques are thus very much important to achieve this objective. In this study four pulse crops (lathyrus, blackgram, pea, and greengram) were sown utilizing carry-over residual soil moisture and with different tillage/seeding methods viz. relay cropping (RC)/farmers’ practice, reduced tillage (only two ploughing) (RT), conventional tillage (CT) and zero tillage (ZT). Study revealed that the highest grain yields of 580, 630, 605 and 525 kg ha −1 were obtained from lathyrus, blackgram, pea and green gram, respectively, with RT treatment. On the other hand, with conventional tillage, 34–44% lower yields were obtained than that of RT. Crops with reduced tillage performed better than that with zero tillage or relay cropping also. Impacts of different tillage methods on important soil physical properties like infiltration, bulk density were also studied after harvesting first crop (rice) and before growing second crops (pulses) in rice fallow. The lowest mean bulk density (1.42) was recorded in the surface soils of CT treatment while the corresponding value under ZT treatment was 1.54 Mg m −3.