ENHANCING THE PRODUCTIVITY AND PROFITABILITY OF ORGANIC BASMATI RICE (ORYZA SATIVA L.) -BASED CROPPING SYSTEMS UNDER SUB-TROPICAL AGROCLIMATIC CONDITIONS

The aim of this 5-year research was to generate necessary knowledge about cropping systems for sustainable organic crop production, as cropping systems are extremely important for the productive assets of agriculture and also help in maintaining soil fertility.In order to determine the most effective organic cropping system for enhancing the productivity of basmati rice, a study was conducted on ten different basmati rice-based cropping systems under organic farming conditions at the Research Farm of the Centre for Organic and Natural Farming, situated within the Sher -e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu, Chatha, Jammu and Kashmir, INDIA.The experiments were laid out in Randomized Block Design with three replications.The results showed that the highest grain yield of 31.08 q ha -1 , straw yield of 54.22 q ha -1 , harvest index of 36.43%,1000-grain weight of 22.93 g, number of grains/panicle of 69.20, leaf area index at 90 DAT of 4.49 cm 2 , LCC at 90 DAT of 4.50, number of tillers (m -2 ) at 90 DAT of 369 and plant height at 90 DAT of 113.14 cm were obtained in basmati rice -berseem -moong cropping system which was found to be at par with the basmati rice -berseem -mash cropping system.Moreover, both these systems also gave the highest Basmati rice equivalent yield (77.72 and 76.53 q ha -1 ) and relative system production efficiency (110.1% and 106.9%).