Components

Crop Diversification and Crop Rotation

kiran — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 16:06:46 +0000

Crop Diversification and Crop Rotation kiran Tue, 10/02/2018 - 21:51

Crop diversification refers to the addition of new crops or cropping systems to agricultural production on a particular farm taking into account the different returns from value-added crops with complementary marketing opportunities.Crop diversification leads to increase in income on small farm holdings, withstands the price fluctuation, help in mitigating ill-effects of aberrant weather balance of food demand, improves fodder for livestock animals, helps in conservation of natural resources (soil, water, etc.), minimize environmental pollution, reduces dependence on off-farm inputs, decreases insect pests, diseases and weed problems.

Crop Rotation involves planting different crops in the same area at different times of the year or in different year. Crop rotation promotes differential uptake of nutrients due to different nature of crops and this can aid in conservation of soil nutrients. The introduction of legumes for crop rotation can aid to the addition of nitrogen to the field and enhance the condition of nutrients in the field ultimately reducing the requirement of fertilizers. The growing of same crop in the same field promotes the habitat for pests and crop rotation thus can break the life cycle of pests and diseases in the crop. This ultimately leads to the conservation of the nature.

Improved Seed

kiran — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 16:06:28 +0000

Improved Seed kiran Tue, 10/02/2018 - 21:51

Seed is the basic, vital and crucial input for crop production. Improved seed refers to a seed produced through a series of seed production channel that is suited for a particular domain, have a specific Package of practices, superior than local cultivars in many characters and offer farmer to harvest a bumper amount of crop through its genetics potential for bulk production. Improved seed is one of the ways to increase the productivity without adding appreciably to the extent of land. Improved seeds are free from diseases, have high vigor and germination capacity and have optimum moisture content. Good return per unit area, higher production, genetic potential, lesser pest, insect and disease problems, fast and uniform emergence, wider adaptability, highly input responsive are the properties that makes improved seed basic tool for sustainable agriculture. Various research findings have shown that there is about 20-25% increment in the yield through use of improved seeds only.

Machineries

kiran — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 16:05:42 +0000

Machineries kiran Tue, 10/02/2018 - 21:50

A machine refers to anything that uses power and electricity to operate, simplify the complexity of work and reduces human efforts. Agricultural machineries are the equipment which are used in agricultural field to carry out agricultural operations efficiently, quickly, smoothly and accurately. The sustainability of conservation agriculture relies on the degree to which the resource conserving agricultural equipments are used. Some of the equipments used in CAs are Minimum tillage equipments, direct seeding equipments (Planting sticks, Hand jab planters, Seed cum drill) and cover crop and weed management tools (Hand weeder, Knife, roller, Zam, wipe herbicide applicator). Use of machineries helps to conserve the soil, retain soil moisture, improves efficiency of agricultural inputs, reduce production costs and many more.