Physiological response of lentil (Lens culinaris Medik) to rice residual soil moisture influenced by tillage and residue management

Rapid depletion of root zone soil moisture, coupled with rising atmospheric temperatures after monsoon rice cultivation, creates water shortage for rainfed winter crops, highlighting the need for moisture conservation strategies. To test this, an experiment was conducted with winter lentil (Lens culinaris Medik) at the university experimental farm, West Bengal, India, during the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 growing seasons. The experiment was framed using an Augmented Factorial Design with three types of tillage, viz., no tillage (NT i.e., T1), minimum tillage (MT i.e., T2) and conventional tillage (CT) and three residue management, viz.,10 cm (N1) and 20 cm (N2) rice stubble retention and rice straw mulch addition (N3). It was observed that T1N3 stored the maximum soil moisture followed by T2N3 and CT stored the least. T2N3 shaped the highest the relative leaf water content (84.9 %), Leaf Area Index (LAI) (3.7), chlorophyll content (3.0 g l-1), crop growth rate (19.8 g m-2day-1) and specific leaf weight (11.8 g cm-2) followed by T1N3 and the least was encountered under CT. Treatment T2N3 had significantly the higher biomass content (12.3 Mg ha-1) and yield (19.4 kg ha-1), resulting in higher biomass (35.2 %) and grain (37.6 %) yield over control. Hence, modification of the micro-climate by using rice straw mulch under minimum tillage needs to be adopted for lentil cultivation after monsoon rice.