Micro-irrigation in rainfed pigeonpea - upscaling productivity under Eastern Gangetic Plains with suitable land configuration, population management and supplementary fertigation at critical stages

Abstract

Water - a critical input for sustained crop production - is becoming limiting both under rainfed and irrigated condition. It calls for an effective on-farm management of water in field crops through microirrigation (drip-fertigation) that could take care of both drainage during rainy months and supplementary life saving irrigation thereafter. Therefore, the present field study involving three planting configurations and five drip-fertigation schedules were taken up in pigeonpea (long duration) during 2010-12 under Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains at Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. Significant grain yield advantage (19.6%) was with single drip-fertigation with half of N + K fertilizer at branching over farmers' practice (rainfed pigeonpea, 2858 kg/ha). Drip-fertigation at both branch and pod development also out-yielded (3468 kg/ha) over improved practice (furrow irrigation, 3262 kg/ha). These yield levels realized were close to potential yield (2.5-3.0 t/ha). Twice drip-fertigated plots also had higher yield attributes (pods/plant, 100 seed weight and harvest index), lower water use, greater soil profile water content and water use efficiency (65.1 kg/hacm), higher plant nutrient (N, P and K) uptake with improved soil nutrient availability and greater net return (INR 9650/ha) over farmers' practice. A case study on a micro-scale was also given which could explore the possibility of out-scaling the technology.