Crop production through diversion systems of rain water management in hillocks area of Bundelkhand

A study was conducted on management with diversion systems during 2009 and 2010 in catchments of river Betawa in Jhararghat, Shahpur Verma and Verma Bihar villages of Talbehat block, Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh. The objective was to increase the feasibility of crop cultivation through double cropping systems in hill and valley ecosystem, where mono cropping with mono culture is in vogue in piecemeal. The treatments viz., conventional system (CS), runoff recharge in stony dug wells (RRSW), runoff harvesting at hill bottom in natural water impounding structure (NWIS) and runoff collection in constructed water storage structure (CWSS) were tested in the operational area. In double cropping system of sesamum-chickpea and sesamum-Indian mustard, sesamum gave higher yield of 580 kg ha⁻¹ and 570 kg ha⁻¹, respectively under management through runoff collection in constructed water storage structure (CWSS) over the yield recorded in other systems of moisture management. Chickpea and Indian mustard grown after sesamum under management through CWSS gave significantly higher yield of 1890 kg ha⁻¹ and 2240 kg ha⁻¹, respectively as compared to other moisture management practices. The management through CWSS yielded significantly higher blackgram (830 kg ha⁻¹) as compared to yield recorded in runoff harvesting at hill bottom in natural water impounding structure (NWIS), recharge ground water in stony dug wells (RRSW) and conventional system (CS) under black gram-wheat cropping system. Similarly, highest wheat yield of 4850 kg ha ⁻¹ was also recorded in management through CWSS, which was significantly superior over other practices of soil moisture management.