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Tillage
and Crop Establishment
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| Resource
Conservation Technologies |
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(Adobe
PDF Version)
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The
adoption of intensive agriculture in irrigated areas of Punjab,
Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh (all Indian States) and in
Punjab (Pakistan) during the last decades resulted in substantial
increase in the productivity of rice, wheat, and other crops.
The intensification, however, had its own built-in maladies.
These include irrational use of land and water and high-cost
inputs like fertilizer, herbicides, etc. leading to degradation
of the fragile eco-system and depletion of natural resources.
The story is similar in the Terai regions of Nepal
and in Bangladesh.
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Wheat
is commonly raised in the north-western parts of the Indo-Gangetic
Plains, in rotation with rice or other crops like cotton, using
traditional methods of flat sowing and flood irrigation. The
unplanned irrigation methods led to leeching of native and applied
nutrients, aeration, and restriction of plant root and shoot
growth due to the development of hard soil. Obviously, these
factors are threatening the sustainability of the rice-wheat
cropping systems in the region. The high water requirements
of rice and low-cost or nil-cost electricity have greatly aggravated
the declining ground water tables and freshwater aquifers and
it is estimated that the water table is reducing @ 20 centimeters
every year and thereby the depth of tube wells are going upwards.
To confound these problems, Phalaris minor, the major
weed in wheat have developed strong resistance to the commonly
used herbicides and farmers have started using these chemicals
in high quantities. Until recently, rice and wheat were planted
by broadcast method in most parts of the north-western areas.
Research has proved that the traditional methods are not ideal
for enabling uptake of nutrients and weed control is a major
problem faced by the farmers.
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Please
follow the links on the left for detailed information on the
Resource Conservation Technologies (RCTs) and experiments promoted
by the Consortium and if you have specific questions, please
contact Peter
Hobbs, Regional Representative of CIMMYT in South Asia,
Ken
Sayre, Principal Scientist, CIMMYT Mexico and Raj
Gupta, Regional Facilitator of the Consortium..
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