The soil needs to be worked after ploughing to bring it into a desirable tilth condition for sowing planting. For this purpose soil is stirred, clods are crushed, stubbles are removed or incorporated, weeds are destroyed and land surface is levelled and compacted. All these operations are brought about by harrowing. Harrowing is also done during uncropped seasons for levelling, controlling weeds, receiving and conserving moisture. Earthing up consists of shifting the soil from the central portion of the space between rows towards the base of the plant (hill, clump, station) so as to cover and close up the spreading tillers. Earthing up may be done both under wet and dry conditions of soil. For dry soil it must be with optimum moisture to stabilize the earth in position without compaction. In wet soil the shifted soil should not slip down for which stable slices should be lifted.
Management Techniques
- Reductions of run off and increasing infiltration
Whenever rainfall is received a large portion (30 to 50%) is lost as run off because of poor infiltration due to the nature of the soil and the slope of the area. The following measures help to prevent this:
- Land Management
The following land management measures were found to be promising in several locations with varying degrees of response:
Bunding fields on contour lines,Division of the land into compartments,
Land shaping, levelling, terracing according to slope and configuration of the land.Graded bunds with graseed waterways and box-type masonry drainage outlets in arable fields.
Ploughing across the slope and growing low value crops in catchment areas; the row direction should be across the slope, Growing high value crops in level, run off concentrated strips.The ploughing of deep soils should be done once in three to four years immediately after the harvest of rabi crops. The ploughing of light, shallow and medium soils should be omitted, they may instead be hoed.
Reclaiming problem soils, Incorporating a liberal quantity of organic matter.- Other technologies
Growing both erosion permitting and erosion restricting crops with permanent grass strips with Dichanthium annulatum, Cynodon dactylon, Brachiaria sp., Eulaliopsis binate and Saccharum sp. and growing cover and strip crops. Growing a shelter belt of forage, fuel and timber trees to protect the land from wind erosion.
Adopting water harvesting by inter-plot, inter-row, modified inter-row, broad-bed and furrows system (ICRISAT) for in situ conservation and by collecting the run off in tanks for future use as life saving irrigation for crops.
Primary Tillage
Primary tillage is done by a plough in the rainfed areas during the non-crop season. Essentially, it is meant to open the soil for more water intake with the summer rains. However, this off-season tillage is often not practised in many areas more so in the Alfisol regions of the country. It is established that with off-season tillage yields could be phenomenally increased, particularly in sub-normal years since there would be reduced weed competition and increased water availability in the soil profile.
- Early sowing
Early sowing has several advantages both general and specific. The general advantages are Better moisture conservation, Good seedling vigour, and Longer growing season.
- Optimum plant population
With the hybrid and high yielding varieties, which are short statured and selected for performance as a population, higher plant density is needed. They also have a high yield plateau over a range of population. In order to achieve these ideal plant stands timely sowing is important and for this timely seed bed preparation is equally important.
Ag.
Technologies
(Water Mgmt.)
