Section 3 (Crop Management)

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Gupta et al. dependent population in these countries. Hence, ensuring the income and nutritional security should receive equal importance in any efforts of reviving these systems. One major school of thought is to follow a two pronged approach where in the resource use efficiency in rice-wheat rotation is improved through alternative tillage and crop establishment practices along with efforts to diversify these systems with more of less resource demanding crops, which offer the needed income and nutritional security to farmers. While the debate on which crop need to be replaced with which crop and whether crop replacement jeopardize the food security of these rice and wheat eating population is outside the purview of this paper, the present paper limits its scope to discussing the potential possibilities for maize cultivation in rice-wheat rotation in the light of changing tillage practices and growing market potential for this crop. There are two main reasons for the necessity of increasing area under maize cultivation in South Asia. Firstly, the ever growing cereals demand, both globally in general and in developing world in specific, due to the rising population. It was projected that by 2020 the demand for maize in developing countries will surpass the demand for both wheat and rice (Pingali and Pandey, 2000). The rising incomes in developing world and the consequent growth in meat and poultry consumption have resulted in a rapid increase in the demand for maize as livestock feed in East and Southeast Asia where the maize requirements are projected to rise to 280 million tons in 2020 (IFPRI, 2000). Secondly, our major argument towards crop diversification in general and inclusion of maize in rice-wheat rotation in particular originates from that of Siddiq (2002) who predicts difficulties in furthering production and productivity in rice and wheat crops. He argues that the differences between farm and research plot yields are narrowing down and genetic means of increasing the productivity is no more an easy task for the plant breeders. Hence, we believe introduction of high productivity crops, such as maize, is worth exploring for enhancing the food production. This argument also has its roots in the fact that the hybrid rice would only provide limited yield advantage in this region. Similar is the case with the efforts of exploiting hybrid vigor in wheat crop (Siddiq, 2002). Success obtained in hybrid rice technology in China and elsewhere need to be analyzed cautiously. Maize in IGP Countries The IGP countries grew maize in an area of 7.99 mha in 2002 (FAO, 2003). Maize, the global leader in productivity and production, occupy second in area after rice in Nepal (Pathik, 2001), third in Pakistan and Bangladesh after rice and wheat, and fifth in India after rice, wheat, sorghum and pearl millet. Maize is traditionally grown as kharif crop in these countries, either rainfed or irrigated. In India, the kharif maize represents 89% of the total area under maize. The largest area under the kharif maize is in Uttar Pradesh (1.4m ha), followed by Bihar (0.96 mha). The spring and rabi maize are gaining popularity with farmers and with multinationals showing interest in it because of higher yield potential because of the assured irrigation facilities. The trend is more clear in Pakistan where spring maize, today, occupy 12- 15% of area planted in kharif and represents 30-35% of the annual maize production (Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, 2003a). Predictions are that the area would increase further owing to benefits it is bringing. In India, maize sector is going more towards winter maize. While spring maize has the threat of facing high temperatures during silking resulting possible poor seed setting and grain yield, the winter maize is relatively free from these difficulties and diseases and insects. Winter maize in India is a success in eastern IGP, especially in the state of Bihar (N.N. Singh, Personal communication, 2003). The success of winter maize in Bihar is due to sunny days, long growing season, dry and cool temperatures which are more suitable to the crop and less for the pest. This encouraged farmers to take rabi maize to a higher share (Chaudhary and Shahi, 1990). Incidentally, Bihar is the second largest maize - 206 -
Maize in the rice-wheat rotation growing state in India which grows maize in 0.58 mha of area with a productivity of 2.6 tha -1 . The productivity is highest in the Indian IGP states mainly because of the dominant rabi maize in this state. Maize as Possible Candidate of Rice-Wheat Diversification Any discussion on maize crop should start with its utilities, because this crop has many food and industrial uses. Maize can be consumed as grain (flour, flakes and pop corn), as a vegetable (sweet corn and baby corn), and as feed (grain and whole plant). Its industrial uses include preparation of starch, oil, alcohol, sweeteners and thickening agents (González Ceniceros and Singh, 2001). In India, these uses have already started finding market with a success. Maize demand is likely to grow rapidly in India in very near future for the poultry, piggery and livestock sectors as well for feed, and fodder. Whereas legumes/ pulses suffer from several diseases and pest problems, maize does not seem to be crippled by these limitations and likely to be farmer’s choice in diversification of rice-wheat rotation once maize production is fully mechanized. The ability of the maize crop to grow in different seasons and high productivity of winter and spring maize give it added advantages for inclusion in the cropping system as demand for more food grows. With increased purchasing power, maize demand is increasing in poultry industry as the populations in IGP countries are increasingly becoming non-vegetarian. Late planting is a major constraint in cultivating winter maize after kharif rice crop. The problem is acute when farmers grow long duration scented basmati cultivars in kharif. Sowings are further delayed when farmers resort to thorough field preparation which takes more time than a week time. Experiments conducted at KVK, Kalyani, West Bengal shows that the highest maize yields could only be obtained when it is sown in first fortnight of November (Fig 1) (Prodhan, 2001). The yields were substantially reduced by a ton per week of delay in sowing. Still higher yield reductions are expected if the silking and grain filling stages coincide with hot westerly winds. Late planting can be avoided by adopting zero-till sowing of maize in either kharif after harvesting wheat or in rabi after harvesting rice crop. In both cases, the maize crop can be planted by using multi-crop zero-till-cum-ferti-drill capable of sowing maize, rice, wheat, pigeonpea, peas, grams, mustard etc. Paliwal (2003) demonstrated how a successful zero-till maize crop can be grown using various best management practices. Zero-till sowing of maize is a good option worth exploring in areas where it follows the late harvested rice crop. Various on-farm participatory trials revealed little or no difference in zero-till maize when compared to best managed conventional crop. Despite the similar yields, the economic advantage the farmers benefit with zero-till maize was USD 50 ha -1 due to savings in tillage and first irrigation as this crop utilizes the residual moisture. Successful establishment of rice on permanent beds would not only bring the benefits of zero tillage but also allows growing of various rabi crops, including maize, on raised bed system. Traditionally, maize is grown either in row geometry or by random broadcasting, mostly when meant for fodder after thoroughly tilling the field till proper tilth is obtained for good field emergence. The traditional practice of growing maize has limitations such as inconvenient input management when sown by broadcasting, improper plant geometry, and uneven plant population resulting in inefficient utilization of space and plant competition leading to low productivity and input efficiency. The south Asian farmers are yet to grow maize on raised beds, though it is a common practice in many western countries. Bed planting of maize helps establish proper plant stand, increases input efficiency, increases yields, and opens up avenues for further crop intensification through intercropping. The traditional cropping systems in which maize is grown in Indian IGP are given in Table 1 (Yadav and Rao, 2001). It can be seen that maize-wheat is the major crop rotation followed by maize-mustard or toria-wheat and maize-potato-wheat. This is to be noted that rice-wheat is primary cropping system in all these areas and these cropping systems stand at secondary or tertiary level. Kharif, rabi and spring maize - 207 -
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Page 25 and 26: Rajbhandari Appendix 2a. Combined a
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Maize-wheat systems Table 4. Balanc
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grain yield and eff. tillers grain
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Proceedings of the 8 th Asian Regio
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Results and Discussion Maize in eas
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Maize in eastern hills of Nepal Tab
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Yield kg/ha 7000 6000 5000 4000 300
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Maize in eastern hills of Nepal App
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Pokharel et al. backgrounds, we hav
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Results and Discussion N-requiremen
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Rainfall (mm) 800 700 600 500 400 3
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N-requirement in maize/millet relay
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Appendix I. Weather Information rec
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Tripathi It is necessary to manage
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Results and Discussion Tripathi Mai
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Literature Cited Tripathi App (Nepa
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Table 4. Treatment combinations and
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Table 6. Grain yield of maize (t/ha
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Maize grain (t/ha) 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Maize grain (t/ha) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
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Labios et al. surface is left undis
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Labios et al. Figures 3 and 4 showe
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Labios et al. Labios R.V.; Robles,
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Figure 1. Farmers planting corn usi
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Figure 5a. Status of the field at p
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Maize-rice rotation in Thailand On-
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Maize-rice rotation in Thailand Fro
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Maize-rice rotation in Thailand Tab
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Maize-rice rotation in Thailand Tab
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Harris et al. humid, sub-tropical c
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Harris et al. In Pakistan, priming
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Table 2. Effect of priming duration
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