Scientists have evolved inter-cropping systems to augment agricultural production and to meet the challenge of higher requirement in the country by the turn of the century.
As most of the additional food requirement of the world had to come from the land already being farmed, a major share of the increase would have to be from improved crop cultivation.
However, vast areas in the tropics and sub-tropics offered a second means of increased production increasing the number of crops produced per year on a given field, which was achieved by combining the crops in time and space, said scientists in the Sugarcane Breeding Institute here. Arul Raj, senior scientist (agricultural extension), said several short-duration crops had been tested as inter-crops with sugarcane in tropical India. Short-duration legumes performed well as inter-crops with sugarcane without affecting the performance of the base crop. The system had advantages like higher yield, greater land use, efficiency and improvement of soil fertility through the addition of nitrogen by fixation and excretion from legume components, he said.
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Soyabean, an oil and protein yielding leguminous crop, had been found to be a remunerative inter-crop with sugarcane, he added. Arulraj said a study was undertaken to evaluate the performance of sugarcane with soyabean inter-cropping systems as influenced by nitrogen level and seed rates for sugarcane, in association with three soybean cultivators with different growth habits. Nitrogen levels and seed rates adopted for sugarcane did not influence the performance of the inter-cropped soyabean, he said.
The experiment, conducted in the main season and special season to study the effect of reducing nitrogen dose and increasing seed rate for sugarcane while inter-cropping with different soyabean cultivators, showed that seasonal effect on the growth and yield of component crops were conspicuous. All the parameters were in favour of full recommended dose of nitrogen and normal seed rate of sugarcane and all the inter-cropping systems were better than the sole sugarcane.
Venugopal, project co-ordinator and head of the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR), said the institute was exploring the possibility of raising cotton crop in areas where banana and paddy cropping system was in practice.
Under this system, farmers could produce at least eight quintals of cotton per acre in the intercepting period of January and June, he said.
Moisture needed for growing cotton would be available where bananas were cultivated. Farmers could maintain the moisture with splash irrigation. As organic and chemical manure would be abundant, cotton yield would be more, he added.