Major Areas :: Dryland Agriculture

Major Areas :: Dryland Agriculture :: Soil & Water Conservation Techniques

Agronomic Measures - Crop rotation

Crops are changed year by year in a planned sequence. Crop rotation is a common practice on sloping soils because of its potential for soil saving. Rotation also reduces fertilizer needs, because alfalfa and other legumes replace some of the nitrogen corn and other grain crops remove.

Various Crop rotations:

Pearl millet and Groundnut
Gingelly and groundnut
Groundnut and pulses
Groundnut and ragi
Groundnut and gingelly
Maize and groundnut
Groundnut and coriander
Maize and pulses - pulses
Horse gram/ pearl millet/ pulses/ ragi/ minor millet

Advantages of crop rotation :

Prevents soil depletion.
Maintains soil fertility.
Reduces soil erosion.
Help control weeds.
Reduces reliance on synthetic chemicals.
Reduces pest and diseases build up.

Potential cropping system based on rainfall and soil characteristics

Rainfall (mm)	Soil type	Growing season (weeks)	Profile storage capacity (mm)	Suggested cropping system
350-600	Alfisols, shallow vertisols	20	100	Single rainy season cropping sorghum / maize / soybean
350-600	Deep aridisols, Entisols(alluvium)	20	100	Single cropping sorghum / maize / soybean in kharif / rabi
350-600	Deep vertisols	20	100	Single post rainy season cropping sorghum
600-750	Alfisols, vertisols, entisols	20-30	150	Intercropping 1. Sorghum & Pigeon pea 2. Cotton & Black gram
750-900	Entisols, deep vertisols, deep alfisols, inceptisols	30	200	Double cropping with monitoring 1. Maize & safflower 2. Soybean & chick pea 3. Groundnut & horsegram
> 900	As above	> 30	> 200	Assured double cropping Maize & chick pea Soybean & safflower