Resource Use Efficiency and Economics of Summer Greengram as Influenced by Land Configuration and Irrigation Regimes in North-western Part of India

Abstract

Background: Pulses form a crucial protein component of the human diet and among the pulses, greengram is third most important pulse crop in India. Water is a critical input for sustained crop production and is becoming limited day by day. Hence, the need of the hour is to evaluate effective resource conservation practices, such as land configurations and scientific scheduling of irrigation to achieve higher productivity, profitability and resource use efficiency. The aim of the study was to identify most resource efficient and economical land configuration, irrigation regimes for summer greengram under sandy loam soils of northwestern India. Methods: The experiment was conducted during the summer of 2022 on Student’s farm, School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab to investigate the performance of summer greengram as influenced by land configuration and irrigation regimes. The experiment was carried out in a strip plot design consisting of 12 treatment combinations and three replications. The treatment included three land configurations viz, (L1: Flatbed, L2: Ridge and furrow and L3: Broad bed furrow) and four different irrigation regimes [Irrigating at critical growth stages (I1), 0.60 IW/CPE (I2), 0.75 IW/CPE (I3) and 0.90 IW/CPE (I4)]. Result: Among three land configurations tried, L3 recorded significantly higher water productivity, NUE and net return. Similarly, I1 recorded significantly higher water productivity whereas I4 recorded significantly higher NUE and net return. Among the treatment combinations, I1L3 recorded significantly higher water productivity (0.262 kg m-3) whereas I3L3 recorded significantly higher NUE (25.16 kg seed kg nutrient-1) and net income (₹ 72,848 ha-1) as compared to other treatment combinations. Hence, I1L3 and I4L3 can be recommended to farmers for growing summer greengram under sandy loam soil conditions in water scare regions and assured irrigation situation, respectively.