Monitoring of Soil Properties and Crop Performance (Rice) under Different Rice-based Cropping Systems

Abstract

An experiment on rice-based cropping systems to monitor the soil properties and crop performance (Rice) was conducted at Agronomy Research Farm in Acharya Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Kumarganj (Ayodhya, U.P.) during 2020-21 in Complete Randomized Block Design with seven treatments and three replications. Seven cropping patterns viz; rice-wheat-fallow, rice-wheat-green gram, rice-frenchbean-green gram, rice-berseem-sudan chari, rice-cauliflower-okra, rice-potato-cowpea, rice-mustard-green gram were compared with rice-rice cropping pattern. The cropping systems were evaluated for their productivity & to assess their effect on the soil properties like soil pH, EC, organic carbon contents, soil organic matter, and available soil NPK. The results revealed that the green manuring and leguminous cropping patterns gave higher paddy yield as compared to the commonly practiced rice-rice cropping pattern. The maximum yield of rice (43.15q/ha) was obtained from a rice-mustard-green gram cropping pattern which was comparatively higher than those of a rice-rice cropping pattern. As regards the cost-benefit ratio, the highest ratio was received in the case of the rice-mustard-green gram (1:1.77) cropping system followed by the rice-frenchbean- green gram (1:1.65) and rice-wheat-green gram (1:1.52) as against the existing cropping system rice-rice. The results further indicated that the introduction of green manuring or leguminous crops in the existing rice-wheat system increased grain yields and improved the physio-chemical properties, organic matter contents, and nutrient availability in the soil. Soil pH lowered from 8.3 to 7.97 and organic carbon increased from 0.38 % to 0.39 %.