NICRA Organized Field Day on Conservation Horticulture at ICAR-IIHR, Bengaluru
Conservation horticulture combines practices to improve soil health such as minimal soil disturbance (“no till”), continuous mulch cover, and planting diverse crops. Under the NICRA-Projectwork at ICAR-IIHR, Bengaluru, a 35 year old Alphonso mango orchard was brought under conservation horticulture management through practices like zero tillage, contour trenching, intercrops (Sweet potato, French bean, groundnut, potato, mung bean and cowpea), mixed crops (Mucuna prurience + Pumpkin), and Legume cover crop (Mucuna prurience) besides biomass recycling. Legumes helped to increase in soil organic carbon, nutrient status and microflora resulting in an overall improvement of soil physical, chemical and biological health. The legume cover crop, Mucuna, could increase soil organic C content and aggregation significantly resulting in higher infiltration of rain water and conservation of maximum soil moisture throughout the profile improving the soil health by all means. The legume cover crop Mucuna also smothers weeds physically as well as allelopathically on a sustained basis.
A field day was organized on 29th July 2015 to create awareness and expose farmers to the conservation practices being followed in the mango based cropping systems of ICAR-IIHR that help to mitigate the adverse climatic conditions and the benefits that could be accrued from following such practices. About 100 farmers from prime mango growing districts viz., Chikkamagalur, Tumkur, Kolar and Bengaluru of Karnataka state, participated in the field day. Farmers were shown the inter crops, cover crops and minimum tillage practices being followed and how recycling of crop residues increases soil organic matter and lead to improvement of soil health.
The programme included field visit by farmers and farmers-scientists interactions. The technical interaction was chaired by Dr.T.M.Rao, Director, ICAR-IIHR and all subject matter scientists took part in the interaction session. Dr. R.M. Bhatt, PI NICRA, ICAR-IIHR, has emphasized the importance of the aspect under the NICRA project. Dr. A.N.Ganeshamurthy and Dr. V. Ravindra Co-PIs, working on this aspect explained the importance of conservation practices in conserving soil resources and enhance water retention in the soil profile in mango based cropping systems. Conservation practices alter microclimatic condition that do not allow pathogens to multiply faster to cause epidemics rather provide conducive conditions for the development of bio-agents antagonistic to soil borne pathogens and reducesneed for application of fungicides.Intercrops also help in the multiplication of different bio-agents thereby keeps the pests under natural control minimizing pesticide usage. Smoother crops like Mucuna help in reduction of several weeds which otherwise acts as alternate hosts for various pests.
