Effect of in-situ Moisture Conservation Methods on Productivity in North Eastern Ghat Zone of Odisha

The study was conducted in the Budhadani village of Kandhamal District in north eastern ghat zone of Odisha under the National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) programme of AICRP for Dry Land Agriculture, Phulbani, Odisha during kharif 2014 and 2015. Budhadani village always experiences scarce and erratic monsoon rainfall during kharif season. Practice of sole cropping was predominant in this area and often resulted in low yields or sometimes crop failure due to erratic monsoon rainfall. In such areas, in-situ moisture conservation methods and intercropping system are feasible options to minimize risk in crop production and ensure reasonable returns. The study was conducted for the cropping system as such sole maize, maize + cowpea (2:2) intercropping and maize + pigeon pea (2:2) intercropping system. In this experiment, three in-situ moisture conservation methods such as (i) summer ploughing, (ii) increase bund height and (iii) both summer ploughing and increase bund height were compared with the control treatment with no moisture conservation measures. Among the different moisture conservation methods, summer ploughing with increased bund height resulted in higher yield as compared to control treatment and other moisture conservation methods. Intercropping of rainfed crops such as maize + cowpea and maize + pigeon pea is an important risk minimizing strategy for drought proofing in the scarce rainfall zones.