1Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur-313 001, Rajasthan
2Dryland Farming Research Station, Arjia, Bhilwara-311 001, Rajasthan
3ICAR-Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad-500 059, Telangana
Field experiments were carried out during 2008–09 to 2009–10 on farmers’ field in the Operational Research Project area of Bhilwara district of Rajasthan to evaluate the effect of tank silt on productivity and economics of maize based cropping systems. The experiments were conducted at 10 farmers’ field from five villages in one hectare with or without tank silt. Results revealed that application of tank silt with improved management practices recorded an increase of 36.6% in grain yield of maize over non-application of tank silt which was only 24.9% in case of farmers’ practice. Application of tank silt benefited subsequent crop grown during rabi and produced a significant residual response in maize-wheat, maize-mustard and maize-taramira cropping systems. Application of tank silt brought out an increase of 18 to 32% in the productivity of different maize-based cropping systems under improved practice. Application of tank silt with improved and farmers’ practice increased the WUE of maize by 24 and 21% over the non-application of tank silt, respectively.
Maize, tank silt, economics, grain yield, water use efficiency
