Productivity enhancement of lentil (Lens culinaris Medik) through integrated crop management technologies

The frontline demonstrations were conducted on 45 farmer's fields in the five adopted villages of Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh during rabi seasons of 2010 to 2012 in rainfed condition on medium to heavy soil with medium fertility status under blackgram-lentil cropping system to study the productivity enhancement of lentil through improved production technologies. The results revealed that integrated crop management practices reduced the wilt disease incidence in lentil from 20.7 to 4.9 per cent (76.3 per cent), spray of systemic insecticide imidacloprid 17.8 SL reduced the aphid population from 17.0 to 7.6 per plant (55.2 per cent) in various years. The average 22–27 pods per plant were obtained under improved technology over to farmer's practices (17–21). The seed yields of lentil under improved technology ranged between 5.02 to 10.5 q ha⁻¹ with average yield of 8.63 q ha⁻¹ which was 30.5 per cent higher over the farmer's practice (6.61 q ha⁻¹). However, maximum average net returns (Rs.21666 ha⁻¹) as well as benefit cost ratio (3.47) were recorded under improved technologies as compared to farmer's practice (Rs. 15278 ha⁻¹ and 2.96).