Seed Health Management for Better Productivity - Govind Ballabh ...

(Seed Health Management for Better Productivity)Resource Conservation Techniques in Seed Crop HealthK.P. Singh & DeepshikhaDepartment of Plant Pathology, G.B.P.U.A.&T., Pantnagar-263145 (Uttarakhand)Land and water, the two ultimate natural resources have been exploited indiscriminately tomeet need of human population. The advent of high yielding varieties as a result of greenrevolution coupled with good management practices has further increased the depletion of theseresources. It has been found that an application of inadequate and unbalanced nutrient fertilizationto thecrops not only results in low yields but also deteriorates the soil resources (Singh et, al,1999 & Bisht et. al. 2006)Continuous monoculture of cereals particularly rice and wheat has led to ecological imbalanceproblems in soil hydrology and biotic environment. To overcome these problems, an ideal croppingsystem which ensures a shallow-rooted crop followed by deep rooted one, fertility depleting by fertilityconserving/ restoring crop, soil degrading by soil regenerating crop and demanding heavy inputs bythose that thrive on low inputs, is the need of future to conserve our agricultural resources.Modern crop production system is highly dependent upon heavy use of inputs i.e. machine,fertilizers and agro-chemicals. The indiscriminate use of these inputs has resulted into fast increase inenvironment pollution, high price of inputs and difficulty in sustaining the production level to feed thealarming increase in human population. Hence to overcome these emerging problems there is urgentneed to work out an agricultural production system, which is eco-friendly, economically viable andsocially acceptable by adopting a judicious use of different inputs. Since agricultural development withpositive growth can not subsist on a deteriorating natural base, it is imperative to develop technologyfor resource conservation.IntroductionRCT has now evolved into something with far broader appeal including cost convenience,profitability, food security and sustainability. This technology needs less investment through saving incost of cultivation and improves yield due to advance sowing or better efficiency of external inputs. Itsprofit driven advantage has allowed small and medium farmers to gain confidence in this technology.RCT’s are those practices which enhance resource/input use efficiencies. Zero-tillage,permanent beds, minimum tillage, laser leveling etc. are components of RCT (RWC,www.rwc.cgir.org).Grover and Sharma (2007) observed zero-tillage system as the best practice providing benefitcost ratio much higher (1.56) where as conventional agriculture accounted only 1.12 benefit cost ratios,RCT’s are defined as any practice that will result in improvement of the efficiency of natural resources.Resource Conservation Techniques Package1. Laser land leveling2. Zero/reduced tillage3. Improved varieties4. Seed treatment- 74 -