Horticulture based cropping system for arid region - a review.

摘要

The production system in arid region, which covers ~12% of the country's geographical area, faces several biophysical constraints. Monoculture is often risk prone due to crop failures. Under such situation, cropping system approach integrating suitable over and ground storey crops with hardy fruit trees has been found remunerative providing food, fruit, fuel and fodder to poor farmers. This paper aims to identify the most suitable fruit and forest trees, seasonal (cereals and pulses)/medicinal/spice crops, vegetables, grasses and forages, along with the cropping system models such as horti-agri, horti-pastoral and horti-agri-pastoral system, for different locations based on the available information and research reports. For sustainable management of arid lands and for enhancing the economic viability of the cropping system, partial shift from the existing high input requiring rotation to low input requiring system is the need of the time.