Section 3 (Crop Management)

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Gupta et al. were promoted in eastern and western Indian IGP in an Asian Development Bank funded project on sustaining rice-wheat rotation. Successful farmer participatory experiments in eastern IGP, in the state of Bihar, India, revealed number of profitable rice based cropping systems where maize could be grown in winter. Some of these rotations are given in Table 2 (Kumar, 2003). Among these rotations, rice-potatoonion-maize (green cobs) was found to be most profitable in south Bihar because of additional higher income from the green cobs. Similarly, rice-winter maize-potato gave highest net returns (USD 1011 ha -1 ) in North Bihar. In comparisons involving traditional sole crop and intercropping of maize and potato on raised beds (RWC, 2003), intercrops performed better than the sole crops mainly due to the reason they were sown on flat fields in improper crop geometry, a common problem in these areas. Pandey et al. (2001) obtained highest net returns of USD 1473 per hectare by growing maize (for green cobs)-radishonion crop rotation under irrigated conditions. The next best system was found to be maize (for green cobs)-rice-cabbage with a net profit of USD 719 per hectare. Maize is a most versatile crop for growing intercrops, because of the wide row spacing it needs, providing higher income to the farmers. It was found that soybean and groundnut make good intercrops with maize (Prakash et al., 1993). Growing of maize + groundnut in 2:2 row proportion by paired row planting gave highest combined intercrop yield when compared to any other intercropping tested. In an experiment conducted at Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh, the potato + maize intercropping in 2:1 ratio gave higher net returns than when sown in 1:1 proportion. Though the potato-maize sequence gave the highest net returns in this experiment, farmers could be benefited by intercropping which gives similar returns in the single season as an added advantage (Singh et al., 1998). The authors showed that the higher yields could be obtained when the maize was sown at earthing-up of potato which will reduce the competition for light and nutrients at the initial stages of potato. Farmers and researchers quantified the bed planting benefits in terms of savings of resources like irrigation water. In Bangladesh, bed planted maize out yielded the conventional crop by 1.03 tha -1 and saved 18% of water (Table 3 and 4, Khan, 2003). Not only this, replacing one hectare of rice, whose water requirement is 4,240 mm (Sharma et al., 2002) with maize, whose water requirement is 550-650 mm (Violic, 2000), allows the saved water to be used to raise six hectares of maize or slightly more hectares of pulses. Bed planting further improves this efficiency, which only means this water can be used in increasing the cropping intensities, area and ultimately the food production. One might argue that many other coarse grain cereals use much less water than maize and they can also be grown if the objective is to save water. But maize is the only crop which has many uses and hence offers much better income security to farmers than the other coarse grain cereals. The quality protein maize, popularly called with its acronym QPM, enriches the nutritional quality of maize based food and feed preparations due to its high available lysine and tryptophan content and biological value, which is more than double that of normal maize (CIMMYT, 2001). The QPM cultivars Shaktiman 1 (three-way hybrid) and Shaktiman 2 (single cross hybrid) were grown in farmers fields with success and are having good demand due to high quality protein. Bed planting of QPM maize + pulse crops will provide complete nutritional security to farming communities and dependent farm animals. Rice fallows occupy nearly 4 mha in Indian-IGP alone and are potential areas for increasing the cropping intensity. The available conventional crop establishment techniques can seldom allow these areas to be cropped due to their high moisture content hindering the mechanical manipulation of soil. Improved subsurface drainage system seems to be a possibility to bring these lands into cultivation. A successful establishment of kharif rice on raised beds in these areas will open them to cropping in subsequent seasons. Growing winter maize on raised beds in subsequent season with appropriate intercrop will be a good proposition. - 208 -
Maize in the rice-wheat rotation Availability of multi-crop zero-till-cum bed planter, a ’combine’ for the alternate practical and sustainable tillage practices, is a possibility for farmers to practice the intercropping with much ease. The split seed box attached with this machine facilitate simultaneous sowing of two or more crops in a single operation, and still maintains the respective seed rates. This machine can sow in both zero-till and bed planting situations. Maize sector in IGP in general and in India in particular is in transition and is expanding (Morris et al., 1998). Fuelled by changing food habits and increasing marketing opportunities, this is the time for further expansion and promoting maize further in rice-wheat rotation through above discussed crop diversification options. Some of the favorable indications towards this shift are appearing in Uttar Pradesh where the kharif maize is replacing the rice crop (Gupta, Personal Observation, 2003). Challenges Ahead Zero-till establishment of wheat after a successful kharif maize crop is expected to face problems related to seeding owing to the hard, undecomposed maize stubs and dry soil. The newly developed zerotill drill fitted with double disk type pre-openers, can sow through the rice straw. This should be further tested for its utility in such conditions. In all probability, the draft energy requirement is going to be higher in the above conditions. To add to this, the relatively dry maize harvested field might even need a pre-sowing/post sowing irrigation for sowing and proper field emergence of subsequent crop. Agrotechniques need to be standardized for proper establishment of zero-till maize for wider and easy adoption. Inclusion of maize in rice-wheat rotation will increase the demand for better maize germplasm which need to be met through policy changes for increased access to these germplasm. Measures are also required to make available good quality seed of appropriate varieties. Expansion of market and industrial process facilities must also commensurate with the increasing maize production. Farmers should benefit more by producing maize by getting good market price for their produce. Conclusion Inclusion of maize in rice-wheat growing areas is a useful proposition. Ongoing efforts with alternative crop establishment methods and cropping systems proved successful. With bed planting, the crop intensification and diversification is sure to change the way the crop is grown in these areas. Resource use efficiency can be improved and nutritional and income security can be achieved with little more efforts in solving some of the challenges mentioned in this paper. It needs a change in mind-set of farmers towards the way the crops are raised and it might call for radical changes which are possible through linking research and farmers in a harmonious way. - 209 -
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grain yield and eff. tillers grain
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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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