Soil Management for Improving Crop Yield and Soil Fertility under Maize-Wheat Cropping System in a Haplustept of Arid and Semi-arid Region in India

摘要

Maize (Zea mays L.)-wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is an important cropping system in India covering an area of 1.80 million hectares (Mha) (Jat et al. 2011). Maize, in particular, responds to both inorganic and organic sources of nutrients (Monicah etal. 2007). Wheat, on the other hand, is more dependent on chemical fertilizers; of course the integrated use of inorganic and organic sources of nutrients certainly helps in boosting up wheat productivity (Arora and Hadda 2003). The heavy doses of chemical fertilizers and manures applied are prone to leaching and volatilization losses under unfavorable soil and climatic conditions (Cai et al. 2002) as in arid and semi-arid tropics causing low use efficiency of applied nutrients. Thus adequate soil management practices should be adopted to protect the bare soil surface during summer to improve its physicochemical and biological activities. Various mulching materials, as means of conservation agriculture, have been used to moderate the soil hydrothermalregime during summer season. But the information on the effects of pre-seasonal soil management and seasonal soil fertigation on crop yield and soil fertility in maize-wheat system is scanty. Thus, an attempt was made to improve soil physicochemical andbiological activities by soil management in maize-wheat cropping system on a Haplustept of arid and semi-arid region in India located at Modipuram (29 °N Latitude and 77°46 E Longitude), Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.