Crop growth, productivity, water use and economics in mungbean and urdbean as influenced by precision tillage and sprinkler irrigation scheduling

Our renewed emphasis has been towards selective yet sustainable intensification of viable cropping systems through inclusion of more efficient soil building crops such as pulses, and use of efficient modern production technologies. Amongst pulses, mungbean and urdbean-the fast growing and remunerative pulses with low water requirement in comparison to most of the cereal/oilseeds crops-could be the candidate crops for this. As the crop matures in around two months, improved yet specific agrotechnologies viz., precision tillage and sprinkler based irrigation scheduling could enhance crop productivity and conserve resources. In this context, a field experiment was carried out under EGPZ at ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur, India for two years (2013 and 14) in a sandy loam soil (Typic Ustochrept) with neutral pH and low soil fertility with an objective of enhancing crop productivity per unit water use through precision tillage and sprinkler irrigation scheduling in pre-kharif mungbean and urdbean. The study showed that significant improvement in grain yield with water saving (with low crop water use and enhanced water use efficiency, WUE) was recorded in these crops grown under precision tillage carried out by laser leveler. Besides decreasing grain yield, conventional or normal tillage options alone resulted in at least 10.9% more water use and 30.2% less WUE in comparison to precision tillage in mungbean. Sprinkler irrigation given at pod initiation and seed setting stages was advantageous for enhancing efficiency in crop water use even in case of short duration crop of mungbean with 19.5% less water use and 19.1% higher WUE over flood irrigation given at the above stages. In urdbean, precision tillage had an edge in realization of higher grain yield (11.3%) and total biomass at harvest (19.8%). Increases in productivity (and related growth and yield attributes) making the crop remunerative was also apparent because of consistent supply of water over an extended period of crop growth maintaining a constant yet higher plant water balance and rhizosperic soil moisture content through sprinkler irrigation coupled with laser leveling. Therefore, sprinkler irrigation could play a safe proposition in regulated or precision irrigation scheduling in respect to its quantum/time/frequency. The interactive effect of precision farming carried out through a synergy involving laser levelling and sprinkler irrigation scheduling was also evident in the study. Significant improvement in seed yield (69.2%) was recorded with sprinkler irrigation applied as and when required in mungbean when sowing of the crop was preceded with precision tillage in comparison to normal plough/plank alone. Thus, the present study infers the importance of improved irrigation agronomy in augmenting existing pulses production through growing short duration pre-kharif pulses (mungbean and urdbean) as the supplementary crops in existing cropping systems.