Cultivation of Pulses and Oilseeds to sustain Productivity & Nutrition

Inter-cropping is an improved system of mixed cropping which ensures desired plant stand, ease in cultural operation, spraying of chemicals, harvesting, and higher returns. Conceptually, inter-cropping system helps for risk avoidance from epidemic of insect-pest and disease, and overcome the effect of adverse environmental conditions in agroclimatically unstable regions along with better utilization of solar radiation and inputs efficiency like fertilizer,water compared to crops in sole system. It means inter-cropping not only reduces the risk factors, but also increases the profit.In view of change in the global scenario of demand and supply and hike in prices of oil seeds and food grains, legume based inter-cropping with oil seed assumed great significance to generate more income per unit area under specific set of conditions, also acts as potential sources of nitrogen nutrient as a complement/supplement to inorganic fertilizers. Inter-cropping of chickpea and rapeseed in replacement series at different row proportion has shown significant effect on growth parameters, yield attributes and yield, LER and B:C ratio compared to its sole crops in the clay texture soil of the region.