Assessment of Farming Practices for Enhancing Soil Health in Pigeonpea Based Intercropping Systems on Vertisols

Abstract

Healthy soils are essential for resilient crop production and supporting our ecosystem. Organic farming is a system that can sustain the health of soil, the surrounding ecosystem and people. Agronomic techniques like the introduction of legumes in organic fields have the capacity to maintain soil fertility besides fixing more nitrogen in the soil. With this context, the present investigation was undertaken in long-term experimental plots on Vertisol to analyse the soil health interms of its physical, chemical and biological properties. The field experiment was carried out at Dharwad, Karnataka in strip block design with six farming approaches as vertical factor and five intercropping systems as horizontal factor summing up to 30 treatments. The results revealed that soil physical parameters like bulk density and water holding capacity did not show much significant difference between the treatments. However, organic treatments recorded lower bulk density and higher water holding capacity than inorganic and integrated treatments. Soil chemical and biological properties responded notably to the different farming methods employed. Significantly higher soil organic carbon (5.93 and 5.84 g kg-1) were noted under 100 per cent organic practice under pigeonpea either intercropped with groundnut or greengram compared to treatment under 100% inorganic practice. Higher dehydrogenase activity (37.77 TPF formed g-1day-1)  available nutrients like nitrogen (256 kg ha-1), phosphorus (37 kg ha-1)and sulphur (23.30 kg ha-1) was seen under 100% organic treatments compared to 100% inorganic treatments which recorded following  results of dehydrogenase activity (29.91  TPF formed g-1day-1) nitrogen (230 kg ha-1), phosphorus (27 kg ha-1) and potassium (354 kg ha-1).  Among intercropping systems pigeonpea with either groundnut and greengram noted better results than intercropping with soybean.