Evaluation of Cropping System for Rain Fed Agriculture

Abstract— Erratic and inadequate rainfall is one of the important factors for crop production under rain fed conditions. Crop grown as sole crop are found to be rather risky due to delayed monsoon accompanied with prolonged intermittent dry spells. A strategy for stabilizing production of dry-land crops through commonly recognized practice of intercropping of compatible crops is considered viable to overcome the situation. Mothbean and pearlmillet are important arid crop. So it is necessary to find out its intercropping proportion to resuce the risk of failure of sole crop. Therefore, an experiment was conducted at Dry Farming Research Station, Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University, Radhanpur to evaluate of cropping system for rainfed agriculture in kharif season during 2010-11 to 2022-23. Significantly higher pearlmillet equivalent yield (3466 kg/ha) was recorded under Sole Mothbean which remained at par with pearl millet + moth bean (1:3) intercropping (3305 kg/ha).