On Farm Study on In-Situ Soil Water Conservation Practices for Enhancing Productivity of Pigeon Pea

Abstract

Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L), is a major pulse crop of rainfed regions of India. Surveys conducted in KVK adopted cluster villages, revealed that conventional manual sowing is laborious, un-economical and delays sowing. Furthermore, in rainfed regions, the low productivity is due to deficit soil moisture and low water holding capacity of soil. Earlier in-situ moisture conservation practice through formation of conservation furrow at 30–35 DAS was recommended but the adoption of the technology by farmers is low due to ill distribution of rainfall. Hence to capitalize the initial rainfall for higher productivity and for better adoption the paired row planting and conservation furrow, a new technology developed at ICAR-CRIDA in rainfed regions was tested in farmers’ fields and this treatment was compared with farmers method of sowing. To sow the crop, in this technology a paired row planter was fabricated. In this technology the spacing of pigeon pea was modified to 60/120 cm and conservation furrow was formed between two crop rows. The productivity of pigeon pea was enhanced because the placement of seed and fertilizer is in uniform and placement of seed distance at correct depth is very important for proper germination was good. The sowing of seed in two adjacent edges of two furrows helped in favorable crop growth due to sufficient moisture. The field capacity of the planter was 0.55 ha/hr with field efficiency of 85%. The cost of sowing operation with paired row planter was ` 1300/ha, which is lower than the conventional method. Furthermore, in the improved method 25% of seed and 45% fertilizer saving was observed. Paired row planting recorded 34.25% higher yield as compared to farmers practice.