1Department of Agriculture, School of Agriculture and Biosciences, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore-641 114, Tamil Nadu, India
2Department of Agronomy, Regional Research Station, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Paiyur-635 112, Tamil Nadu, India
3Department of Agronomy, ICAR-Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Tirur-602 025, Tiruvallur, Tamil Nadu, India
*Corresponding Author: K. Sharmili, Department of Agriculture, School of Agriculture and Biosciences, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore-641 114, Tamil Nadu, India. Email: sharmilisheriff@gmail.com
Online published on 17 March, 2023.
Small millets and pulses are world's renowned crops for their nutritional significance. Being an underutilized species; rainfed farmers solely depend on them for their livelihood; which would be enhanced in a planned and efficient cropping system. The current study aimed to the identify suitable inter and sequential crops for rainfed little millet.
In this study, four cropping patterns with two different row proportions for intercropping [viz., (4:1), (6:1)] were used with little millet as a main crop. The cropping systems include - little millet + pigeonpea [(4:1), (6:1)] followed by a sequential horsegram; little millet + pigeonpea followed by moth bean and little millet + lablab [(4:1), (6:1)] followed by Horsegram and little millet + lablab followed by mothbean.
Among them; a higher grain equivalent yield was observed in little millet + pigeonpea (6:1); followed by horsegram. However, higher dry matter, grain weight and higher individual crop yield was obtained in little millet + pigeonpea (6:1) followed by mothbean. Although individual mono cropping yields of these crops were higher; the pattern with little millet - pigeonpea (6:1) followed by horsegram could be recommended as a methodology to aid higher economic returns in shorter period.
Cropping system, Economics, Indices, Little millet, Net returns
