Residue Management and Preceding Winter Crops on Root Characteristics, Weed Dynamics, Productivity, Nutrient Uptake and Profitability of Green Gram under Zero–till Semi-arid Condition

Abstract

Field experiments under zero-till rainfed conditions were conducted during 2010–11 and 2011–12 at New Delhi for evaluating the agronomic performance and economics of green gram influenced by residue management practices, viz. no-residue, crop residues and Leucaena twigs applied to three preceding winter-season crops, such as wheat, chickpea and mustard. All crops were grown under zero-tillage following recommended practices under rainfed conditions. Green gram showed higher root length density (RLD), root surface area (RSA), root volume density (RVD) and average root diameter under crop residues, followed by Leucaena twigs. Comparatively, higher seed yield of green gram was obtained with application of crop residues in 2010, but it was 24% less in 2011. Crop residues and Leucaena twigs remained statistically at par with seed yield of green gram in 2011. Similarly, chickpea as a preceding crop resulted in significantly higher green gram yield over wheat and mustard as preceding crops. The yield attributes like pods per plant and weight of pods per plant showed a significant variation in 2011. The nutrient uptake followed the same trend as seed and stalk yields. Economic analysis exhibited the highest returns under crop residue retention, followed by Leucaena twigs, but no-residue treatment recorded the highest B: C ratio , followed by Leucaena twigs and crop residues in 2010. Green gram, after chickpea with Leucaena twigs provided higher returns in 2011. It was concluded that green gram, after chickpea or wheat with Leucaena twigs and crop residues was a productive and profitable cropping system under semi–arid zero-till conditions. Keywords: Greengram, preceding winter crops, productivity, profitability, rainfed, residue management, root characteristics, zero-till Cite this Article: Lal Prasad Amgain, Ajit Ram Sharma, Abhisek Shrestha. Residue Management and Preceding Winter Crops on Root Characteristics, Weed Dynamics, Productivity, Nutrient Uptake and Profitability of Green Gram under Zero–till Semi-arid Condition. International Journal of Plant Biotechnology. 2019; 5(1) 18–28p.