Intercropping of small millets for agricultural sustainability in drylands : A review

Abstract

The scope for enhancement of productivity under irrigated conditions is limited because of over-exploitation of available resources, but there is ample opportunity for boosting yield in drylands by adopting suitable crops and cropping systems. The agricultural sustainability in drylands is comparatively hard to achieve due to different constraints like poor soil fertility, lack of irrigation facilities and moisture stress, small holdings and less investment in agriculture. Choice of ecologically sound crops as millets and adoption of intercropping systems are two of suitable options for maximization of productivity in drylands. Millets are ancient nutri-cereals which can play a crucial role in food as well as nutritional security of the country and can assure agricultural sustainability in drylands under intercropping system. The combination of cereal and legume in intercropping is mostly preferred by the farmers in subsistence farming targeting livelihood security. Experiments carried out on intercropping of some small millets in India and abroad clearly indicated numerous benefits like enhancement of crops productivity, greater resource use efficiency, check in run-off of water and soil conservation in erosion prone areas, prevention of loss of soil nutrients, improvement of soil health, insurance against crop failure under aberrant weather conditions, higher monetary return and benefit-cost ratio. But the performance of all small millets is not tested under intercropping under different regions. There is still insufficiency in research on small millets based intercropping system which can create further scope for agricultural sustainability of drylands.