Advances in Applied Research

Five cropping systems viz., rice-wheat, rice-gobhi sarson, rice-gobhi sarson-summer moongbean, rice-gram-summer moongbean and rice-gram were evaluated at three locations for soil fertility status and at twenty-four locations for the crop yield, crop productivity, stability index and economic viability during 2005 - 2010 at the farmers’ fields in central plain region of Punjab under “All India Coordinated Research Project on Cropping Systems” (on-farm research). The results of our study revealed medium (0.40 - 0.75%) to high (> 0.75%) range of organic carbon (OC) and low level of available N (< 272 kg ha⁻¹) whereas, high levels of available P₂ O₅ (> 22.4 kg ha⁻¹) and medium level of K₂ O₅ (137 - 337 kg ha⁻¹). All the cropping systems at three locations were able to sustain its soil fertility parameters over a period of five years. The productivity in terms of rice equivalent yield (153.4 q ha⁻¹), system productivity (42.0 kg grain ha⁻¹ day⁻¹), net returns (100420 Rs ha⁻¹) and profitability (275.1 Rs ha⁻¹ day⁻¹) was found to be the highest for rice-gobhi sarson-summer moongbean. But the benefit to cost ratio of 2:4 was found to be highest for rice-wheat, rice-gobhi sarson and rice-gobhi sarson-summer moongbean. Nutrient exhaustive rice-wheat sequence was found to be maximum stable with a stability index of 0.95