Diversification of Rice-based Cropping System under Aerobic Rice Cultivation in South Gujarat, India

Abstract

Crop diversification has been recognised as an effective management system which can enhance the productivity, judicious uses of resources and sustainable agriculture. There is need to diversify rice-based cropping system to enhance the productivity, resilience and soil health. This system involves incorporating vegetables, pulses oilseeds and other cereals either during fallow periods or in place of rice. A field experiment was carried out at the Main Rice Research Centre, Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari, Gujarat during 2021-22 to 2023-24 in kharif and rabi seasons to study the diversification of rice-based cropping system under aerobic rice cultivation in South Gujarat region. Eight different rice-based cropping systems viz., T1: Rice-Sweetcorn, T2: Rice-Cabbage, T3: Rice-Indian bean (vegetable purpose), T4: Rice - Indian bean (seed purpose), T5: Rice - Green gram, T6: Rice-Chickpea T7: Rice-Sorghum and T8: Rice-Mustard were evaluated in randomized block design with four replications. The results showed that different rice-based cropping system did not significantly affect rice yield in kharif seasons. However, it gave higher yield in pulses crop as compared to other crop system. Rabi crops significantly differed among them with producing expected yield during experimental period. The significantly higher rice equivalent yield (20.45 t/ha) was obtained with rice-indian bean (vegetable purpose) cropping system as compared to rest of the systems. Among all the cropping systems, rice-indian bean (vegetable purpose) maintain soil chemical properties as compared to other systems. Thus, under aerobic rice cultivation method among different cropping system, rice-indian bean (vegetable purpose) system was found as the efficient, most productive and improved soil chemical properties in South Gujarat.