Green manuring and wheat residue incorporation to improve soil fertility

Climatic Vulnerability

Continuous rice-wheat cropping system and frequent floods during kharif result in low productivity of rice and wheat. About 170 ha area during kharif was not planted due to threat of floods. Most of the soils in village are low in organic carbon (0.2-0.3%). Further, most of the farmers are marginal and cannot afford to purchase costly external inputs including fertilizers. Farmers were not following green manuring and residue burning was a common practice.

Interventions

Green manuring and wheat residue incorporation to improve soil fertility

Farmers were motivated to avail the scheme of free supply of sesbania seed by Dept of Agriculture, Gorakhpur. Accordingly, about 125 farmers availed the benefit. Similarly, green gram variety ‘Malvia-16’ of 65 days duration was provided to 20 farmers for cultivation after wheat harvest. Further, in order to promote residue incorporation in the fields, the District Magistrate was convinced to issue an order banning residue burning. The grain yield of rice increased by 3.2, 1.6 and 1.8 q/ha due to green manuring with sesbania and green gram, and wheat residue incorporation, respectively compared to conventional practice. Introduction of green gram in rice-wheat system gave 9.6 q/ha seed yield with a net return of Rs 24300/ha and B:C ratio 2.28.

Cultivation of rice varieties tolerant to flood and submergence

Demonstrations were conducted on cultivation of rice varieties ‘Jalnidhi’ and ‘Swarna Sub-1’ for flood and submerged areas, respectively. Farmers harvested rice yield of 30.3 q/ha from ‘Jalnidhi’ in deep water areas of the village where farmers were not taking up any kharif crop earlier. A net return of Rs 12224/ha and B:C ratio 1.59 was recorded with the intervention. In submerged areas, rice variety ‘Swarna sub-1’ gave 47% higher grain yield than traditionally grown variety ‘BPT 5204’  Further, rice establishment through direct seeding and stale bed technique reduced the cost of cultivation by Rs 5640/ha

Promotion of fodder cultivation

Most of the farmers are marginal having agriculture + livestock farming systems. It was observed that poor health of milch animals was one of the reasons for low milk productivity in the village (3.2 l/animal/day). Continuous use of rice and wheat straw for feeding, without use of green fodder is one of the reasons. Hence, the livestock owning farmers were motivated to take up odder cultivation along with food crops. Demonstrations were conducted on cultivation of different fodder crops (cowpea + sorghum, fodder sorghum, maize, berseem and oats) on 20 farmers’ fields. Improved berseem variety ‘vardan’ gave 29% higher fodder yield than local check. Similarly, improved varieties of cowpea (‘UPC 8705’) and maize (‘African tall’) gave two-times higher fodder yield than local checks. Increase in availability of quality fodder throughout the year increased milk productivity by 59% and on an average, each farmer’s income increased by Rs 40/day/animal.

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