Book of Extended summaries ISDA

International Conference on Reimagining Rainfed Agro-ecosystems: Challenges & Opportunities
during 22-24, December 2022 at ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad
comprised of mixture of fieldbean, cowpea, pigeonpea and mustard, and the recommended
dose of fertilizer for finger millet was 50:40:37.5 kgha -1 ;pigeonpea, 25:50:25; groundnut,
25:50:25; both for sole and intercropping system. For pigeonpea transplanted seedlings were
raised in polythene cover during (May) and transplanted during July (45 days old seedling).
Evaluation of the cropping system was carried out by using the following indices,
Production efficiency: Production effieciency (PE) (kg/day) =
System profitability: System profitability =
Relative economic efficiency (REE):REE (%) =
improved/diversified system; ENR- net returns in the existing system
Finger millet equivalent yield (FMEY):
Results
()
()
× 100 where, DNR- net returns obtained under
Yield of intercrop × price of inter crop
FMEY = yield of main crop +
price of main crop
The different intercropping yields were converted into the finger millet equivalent yield.
Among the different intercropping systems, comparing with finger millet based intercropping
systems transplanted finger millet intercropped with pigeonpea(T5) recorded higher finger
millet equivalent yield of 3946 kg ha -1 followed by finger millet + pigeonpea (Direct sown)
(T 4) with FMEY (3284 kg ha -1 ). There was nearly 20.80 % and 4.84 % increase in yield over
sole finger millet (T1)(3125 kg ha -1 ) . The higher yield attributes in finger millet might be due
to the intercropping with pigeonpea, which could be ascribed to the ability of pigeonpea to fix
atmospheric nitrogen, slow growth of pigeon pea in the initial period, better moisture
conservation and also transplanting finger millet, resulted in good crop growth and
establishment. These results were in conformity with findings of Anchal das and Sudhishri
(2010). The better result was also due to the drought tolerance mechanisms of finger millet
which showed noble yield under inconsistent rains during the cropping period. Among
pigeonpea based intercropping system, higher finger millet equivalent yield of 1805 kg ha -1
was recorded in T9 than sole pigeonpea T2(1163 kg ha -1 ). There was 35 % increase in yield in
T 9. The increase in yield advantage was noticed when the component crops in an intercropping
system do not compete for the same ecological riches and the interspecific competition for a
given resources is weaker than the intraspecific competition. The bigger complementary effects
and yield advantages occur when the component crops have different growing periods so as
their major demands on resources varies with time (Ofori and Steen 1981) which was clearly
seen under pigeonpea based intercropping system. Similarly, with respect to groundnut based
intercropping system higher yield advantage was noticed in T 10 compared to growing sole
ground nut (T3) (995 kg ha -1 ). The increase in yield of groundnut with pigeonpea as intercrop
208 | Page
Ecosystem based approaches for climate change adaptation, ecosystem services, integrated farming system models, Land
degradation neutrality