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

(Seed Health Management for Better Productivity)Nutrient Management: The average NPK removal by rice based cropping systems range from554 to 814 kg ha- 1 yr- 1 . for improving the N use efficiency. Subsurface placement of prilled urea, aurea briquettes and release of fertilizers at 10 cm depth is now possible with zero-till machine indirect seeded bed planted rice. In low lying and flood prone areas, it is better to have deep bandplacement of 80% of recommended N as a basal dose at sowing time. Use of straw increasesavailability of other nutrients to crop plant as rice straw (rich in silica) reduces P fixation andincreases the P availability to crop plants (Gillman & Uehara, 2006).Effect on yield: On an average, yield was significantly higher (40.65 q/ha) in conventional tillageplot as compared to zero tillage plot (40.00 q/ha). From the above findings it is clear thatconventional tillage plots has lower diseases incidence as compared to zero tillage plots, which isalso reflected in significantly higher yield in conventional tillage.Table Comparison of yields in Zero (ZT) and Conventional Tillage (CT) conditions in riceduring 2000-02YearYield (Q/ha)ZT CT Mean2000 - - -2001 40.44 41.38 40.942002 39.56 39.92 39.74Mean 40.00 40.65 -(Singh,2004)Resource Conservation Techniques in WheatIn rice-wheat growing areas, major causes of low wheat yield in sequence with rice was itslate sowing for due to delayed rice transplanting. For better wheat cultivation RCTs such as zerotillage/reducedtillage, bed planting and associated agronomic practices, timely farming operationwere found to be good. These techniques improve soil health and are environment friendly andreduce cost cultivation.Zero-tillage: Direct seeding of wheat without tillage has gone in most of the areas. Zero-till takeimmediate advantage of residual moisture from the previous rice crop, as well as water use isreduced by about 10 cm-hectare, production cost of wheat is reduced by Rs. 1500-2000 ha- 1 bypracticing ZT. Also in Zero-till emergence of crop is earlier than conventional till and weed growthparticularly Phalaris minor is much less in ZT.Table- Effect of tillage system on weed densityMethod ofNo. of weeds m-2Dry weight of weeds at 90 DAStillage 30 DAS 60 DAS PhalarisminorViciahirsuteC.album (gm- 2 )totalZero-tillage 73 46 65 4 0.2 75.2Conventional 185 113 107 13 3.6 114.9Gupta, et. al. 2006Table- Effect of rice establishment methods on grain yield (qha-) of wheat (Pantnagar farm)- 78 -