Crop Diversification Options Involving Pulses and Sugarcane for Improving Crop Productivity, Nutritional Security and Sustainability in India

Pulses have very good opportunity to find place in different agro-ecosystems. Nowadays, soil organic carbon and crop productivity have become major concerns in sustainable agriculture. Since last six decades in our country, improvement in productivity of most of the field crops has been obtained but much success could not be achieved in increasing area and productivity of pulse crops. From 1980-1981 to 2013-2014, the total cropped area under pulses in India increased from 22.46 to 25.21 m ha with the peak of 26.40 m ha in 2010-2011. Due to stagnant production and an increase in population, the per capita availability of pulses has been declined in the range of 35.4 g to 47.2 g/capita/day during 2009-2014. Significant increment in area and productivity of pulse crops is possible by intercropping of these crops with sugarcane which is grown in more than 5.15 million ha area in India. Thus, in irrigated agro-ecosystem, there is a great scope of increasing area under pulse crops through crop diversification/intensification besides improving their productivity. Adoption of pulse crops with autumn (October)-planted cane in furrow-irrigated raised-bed system where sugarcane is planted in furrows and component crop is planted on raised beds also provides great scope for increasing crop productivity and optimizing input use efficiencies in the system. Crop residues recycling of pulses addresses the key issue of decreasing soil organic carbon created due to indiscriminate/imbalanced use of fertilizers and lower use/unavailability of organic manures. Mechanization of diversified cropping systems will certainly boost the adoption of recommended technologies by the farmers. Various tractor-drawn implements for planting of sugarcane and component pulse crops have been developed. Mechanical harvesters for pulse crops have already been developed and are being used by the farmers. Thus, cost of production could be reduced and profitability may be increased with introduction of these crops in irrigated agro-ecosystem besides improving soil fertility and sustainability for longer period. In present paper, authors presented the opportunities of agronomic interventions for pulse crops in sugarcane-based system to improve the crop productivity, profitability and sustainability.