Nutrient Uptake and Balance of Cotton + Pigeonpea Strip Intercropping on Rainfed Vertisols of Central India

Abstract

Nutrient uptake and balance of the cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) + pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan(L.) Millsp.), a traditional strip intercropping system practiced on the rainfed Vertisols of central India is not known to us. On-farm participatory trials were conducted on 10 farmer fields, five each on medium deep (MDS) and deep soils (DS) of Nagpur, central India to determine the effect of technological interventions on N, P and K uptake of cotton and pigeonpea. The nutrient balance was also quantified as a difference of nutrient inputs and removal. Nutrients accumulated by the crops (grain, stalk and leaves) and weeds removed off the field by hand weeding were considered as nutrient removal, while fertilizer was considered as nutrient input. The interventions included application of recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF), RDF + conservation tillage with in situ green manure (CT 1 ) and CT 1 + application of ZnSO 4 (CT 2 ) and compared with farmers' practice (FP). Nutrient uptake, in general, was higher on DS than on MDS. Among the interventions, N, P and K uptake of cotton and pigeonpea followed the order: CT 2 > CT 1 > RDF > FP. Mean N and P balance was positive in all the treatments. The balance may become negative if nutrient losses are accounted. A negative K balance was observed in all the treatments and the magnitude was the greatest for the FP plots (À39.4 kg ha À1 y À1 ). In spite of fertilizer-K application in the intervention plots, K balance was negative (À14.4 to À19.5 kg ha À1 y À1 ). By way of leaf and fruit drop, cotton and pigeonpea litter recycled 12.2 kg N, 1.7 kg P and 6.7 kg K ha À1 y À1 .

Energy budgeting and carbon footprint of transgenic cotton–wheat production system through peanut intercropping and FYM addition

“…This might have increased photosynthetic activities of plant which ultimately helped to realized greater biomass accumulation (Singh and Ahlawat 2014a). Our results are in general agreement with other studies in which higher productivity and energy returns were largely associated with combined application of organic and inorganic sources of N (Blaise et al 2005). The 100 % RDN application through urea maintained the highest energy intensiveness (Table 9) due to less cost of cultivation and energy input in comparison to FYM treatments (Singh et al 1997).…”

Intercropping maintains soil fertility in terms of chemical properties and enzyme activities on a timescale of one decade

“…Furthermore, K acquisition averaged over the intercropping systems was 299 kg ha −1 and 45.5 kg ha −1 higher than by the monocultures in 2012. Our results are consistent with several published studies (Blaise et al 2005;Mondal et al 2004). This implies that K fertilizer or manure applications are potentially important in both intercropping and rotational cropping systems.…”

Nitrogen economy in relay intercropping systems of wheat and cotton

“…Still, even though the intercropping system as a whole may consume more nitrogen, each component crop in an intercropping system is likely to take up less nitrogen than in a monocrop situation, due to competition with the other crop. This, for instance, was found by Blaise et al (2005), who reported that total N uptake in strip intercropping of cotton and pigeon pea in rainfed regions of central India was lower than in sole cotton because of a lower crop productivity.…”