Background: Mungbean is one of the important major pulse crops of the country. The Indira Gandhi Canal and groundwater irrigation have brought about significant ecological changes in the hot, dry region. Crop patterns have drastically shifted due to the availability of water for irrigation. Since the insects are, poikilothermic creatures, also prone to climate change. Therefore, it aimed to study the insect pest scenario in changing crop and climate of this region. 
&nbsp; 
Methods: Survey and surveillance was done at fortnightly intervals. A total of 10 locations of mungbean were selected in Jaisalmer covering distance about 100-120 km while each filed/village had a distance of 5-7 km. Fixed plot survey approach was adopted and observations were taken at fortnightly interval from five spots in a field. From each spot, 3 plants were randomly examined. Weather data recorded at agro-meteorology unit of experimental area chandan (located 40 km from Jaisalmer) of regional research station Jaisalmer of ICAR-Central Arid Zone Research Institute was used for the study. 
&nbsp; 
Result: Insects i.e., Spotted pod borer, pod borer, blister beetle, looper, sphinx moth caterpillar, leaf folder, whitefly, thrips, leaf miner were found on mungbean, of these major were thrips, pod borer and spotted pod borer. Blister beetle was also observed as voracious and devastating but sporadic. Shannon&rsquo;s diversity index recorded in this study was 1.45 altogether.&nbsp; Spotted pod borer and American pod borer appeared in second fortnight of July (0.05 and 0.06 larvae) and reached to peak (1.02 and 1.01 larvae) in first fortnight of Sept. Thrips seen (0.51 thrips) in second fortnight of July and maximum (4.3 thrips) in first fortnight of September. Mean maximum temperature exhibited mild effect on the decrease of spotted pod borer and increase of Helicoverpa and thrips population while minimum had moderate effect. Mean Maximum and minimum Relative humidity demonstrated strong significant positive effect.&nbsp;

Insect Pests Dynamics and Their Weather-based Population Fluctuation in Mungbean Crop in Hot Arid Region of Western Rajasthan

Background: Sowing of crops at the optimal time is a non-cash input, which maximizes yield by effectively utilizing available resources. Choosing the best sowing time is crucial for exploiting a crop&rsquo;s fullest potential in a specific environment with good agronomic management. 
 
Methods: A long term experiment (2004-2020) was conducted at research farm under AICRP on Agro meteorology field unit, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bengaluru from 2004-2020 to find out the different sowing windows on the performance and resource use efficiencies in pigeonpea. 
 
Result: Long term (2004-2020) pooled data analysis reveals that, among the different sowing windows, early sown pigeonpea produced higher seed yield with effective utilization of the resources compared to the normal and late sown crops.

Weather based Yield Prediction of Pigeonpea Crop with the Resource Use Efficiency under Varied Sowing Windows

<div>Background: Bangladesh is one of the densely populated countries in the world. To meet up the increasing food demand there&rsquo;s no alternative to increase the cropping intensity through high yielding and short duration crop varieties. Currently, cropping system of Bangladesh is mostly rice based which is also the staple food. Therefore, farmers which follow rice-rice based cropping patterns are gaining less profit day by day. Contrary, intensive rice culture is depleting soil properties gradually. Thus, to preserve soil health and increase profit pulse and oil seed based cropping patterns are crucial for sustaining a cropping pattern. This study was undertaken to find out a cropping pattern with higher yield and profit in the context of Magura district. 
 
Methods: Five cropping patterns, CP1 = Transplanted Aman rice (cv. Binadhan-7)- Mustard (cv. Binasarisha-9)- Boro rice (cv. Binadhan-14); CP2 = T.Aman (cv. Binadhan-16)-Mustard (cv. Binasarisha-10)- Boro (cv. Binadhan-14); CP3 = T.Aman (cv. Binadhan-17) -Mustard (cv. Binasarisha-10)- Boro (cv. Binadhan-14); CP4 = T.Aman (cv. Binadhan-17)-&nbsp;Lentil (cv. Binamasur-8)- Sesame (cv. Binatil-3) and &nbsp;CP5 (Control) -&nbsp;Aman (cv. Shorna) &ndash; Boro (cv. Heera) - fallow were assessed to identify the most suitable and profitable pattern as well as to enhance the cropping intensity by adding a pulse or oil seed crop between two rice crops. The investigation was conducted at farmer&rsquo;s field of Magura during 2018-19. Block farming method was followed for experiment set up.&nbsp; 
 
Result: It was revealed that, maximum rice equivalent yield (REY) was obtained from CP1 (14.46 t/ha) followed by CP4 (13.52 t/ha), CP3 (13.35 t/ha), CP2 (13.09 t/ha) and CP5 (11.33 t/ha) during one year crop cycle. Highest gross margin (Tk. 1,90,189) and MBCR (1.83) was obtained from the cropping pattern CP4 and the lowest gross margin (Tk. 69,271) and MBCR (1.24) was found with the pattern CP5. Based on the above results it can be suggested that, Aman rice-Lentil-Sesame pattern i.e. CP4 may be a best choice for the farmers of Magura region for the maximum utilization of their land and gaining more profit compared to the other studied cropping patterns.</div>

<div>Yield and Profitability Analysis of Pulse and Oil Seed Based Cropping Patterns against Aman- Boro- Fallow Cropping Systems in Magura</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">Continuous adoption of Pearl millet-Wheat cropping system led to reduction in productivity which put a serious threat to its sustainability in semi-arid eastern plain zone of Rajasthan, India. Crop diversification with wider choice with a variety of crops is being promoted as an alternative to profit maximization with enhanced soil fertility status. Therefore, a long term experiment was initiated to evaluate the production potential, sustainability, resource-use efficiency and economics of nine Pearl millet based cropping systems. Result revealed that system productivity in terms of pearl millet equivalent yield (PMEY) was highest (30488 kg ha-1) with groundnut-wheat-cluster bean-onion crop rotation. Moreover, groundnut-wheat-cluster bean-onion recorded the highest SYI and land use efficiency (0.65 and 73.97%) followed by pearl millet-wheat-cluster bean-barley sequence (0.63 and 65.75%). The groundnut-wheat-cluster bean-onion also generated highest number of man days/ha/year (405). The highest values of organic carbon were found under green gram-mustard-pearl millet-lentil and cluster bean-pea-pearl millet-lentil. The maximum value of available P was recorded with cluster bean-mustard-green gram-garden cress followed by the groundnut-wheat-cluster bean-onion sequence. Available K decreased significantly from their initial values in all the cropping systems except groundnut-wheat-cluster bean-onion crop rotation. Among the various systems, groundnut-wheat-cluster bean-onion realized the highest net returns ( 213000 ha-1), followed by pearl millet-wheat-cluster bean-barley ( 163254 ha-1). Overall, it can be concluded that under the semi-arid agro climatic conditions of Rajasthan, groundnut-wheat-cluster bean-onion, followed by pearl millet-wheat-cluster bean-barley, were more productive, sustainable, resource use efficient and remunerative than other cropping systems.</div>

Crop diversification of predominant Pearl millet based cropping system for higher productivity, resource-use efficiency and profitability in Semi-Arid Rajasthan

<div>Background: Rainwater harvesting is commonly practiced in areas, where the rainfall is insufficient for crop growing. Due to the intermittent nature of run-off events, it is necessary to store the maximum possible amount of rainwater during the rainy season so that it may be used as irrigation to enhance the crop productivity and farm income under soybean based cropping system. 
 
Methods: A study was carried out during 2018-2019 in Indore district of Malwa region. Rainwater harvesting tanks at on station (42&times;21&times;2.4m) and on farm (15&times;11&times;4m) were constructed for irrigation water availability. Provision of water harvesting tank increased the irrigation water availability (1781m3 and 630m3 respectively) and stored water was managed through various irrigation systems viz. rain gun, drip and flood. 
 
Result: It was resulted that the provision of water harvesting tanks enhanced the crop productivity and farm income under soybean based cropping system. Availability of irrigation encouraged the farmers to diversify the cropping pattern (soybean-chickpea, soybean -wheat). It is also clear from the study that even with smaller storage tank and through conjunctive use of ground (1164.2m3) and surface water (596m3), multiple crops (Soybean, potato, sweet corn, chickpea, onion, garlic etc.) can be grown. Soybean-Chickpea cropping system at station gave the net return of 70976 Rs/ha with B: C ratio of 3.15. Soybean-Wheat cropping system at farm gave the net return of 119000 Rs/ha with B:C ratio of 3.38.&nbsp;</div>

<div>Crop Productivity Enhancement under Soybean Based Cropping System through Harvested Rain Water in Malwa Region</div>

<div style="text-align:justify">Background: Land configuration decides the effectiveness of crop management practices and major land configuration practice includes raised bed preparation, ridges and furrows, broad bed furrows etc. The farmers&rsquo; practice of sowing in flatbed without proper land configuration, leads to poor growth and development of crops. A large portion of crop residues is burnt by the farmers in the fields to clear the left-over straw and stubbles. Conservation agriculture involving crop residue management can give new direction for sustaining productivity. The development issue of rainfed agriculture assumes critical importance in India due to slow growth and its impact on livelihood security of rural poor in India. Changes in crop establishment method in rice have significant implications in performing farm operations like tillage, seedbed preparations, transplanting, weeding and other intercultural operations including water management. The current study aimed to study the BF methods as land configuration including crop residue management in rainfed eco system in direct seeded rice based cropping system. 
 
Methods:&nbsp;In the field experiment during 2016-17 and 2017-18, different size of bed of Broad bed Furrow (BBF) including Flatbed was made manually consisting four replication. After final land preparation the experimental field was divided into four blocks and each block was divided in to six main plots to allocate the six soil moisture conservation practices randomly, for growing summer (direct seeded ahu rice), kharif (green gram) crops. The main plots were again divided in to four sub-plots to allocate the rabi crops randomly following a split-plot design. Incorporation of crop residues was done in the plots as per treatments. 
 
Result: The investigation resulted better performance of both the size of BBF beds as compared to flatbed method in respect of yield attributes and yield of the crops studied. Among the BBF, 60-30 cm size bed showed better than the BBF 120-30 cm size beds. The residue incorporation plots were shown comparatively better result than no residue incorporation treatments. The present study will be a contribution to the study of BBF particularly in pulse crops due to heavy rainfall received during kharif season in Assam.</div>

Influence of Different Moisture Conservation Practices and Crop Sequence on Direct Seeded Rice based Cropping System in Rainfed Ecosystem of Assam, India

Background: A long-term experiment on legume crops, integrated with various rice-based cropping systems, was initiated in the 2019-20 agricultural year under the All India Coordinated Research Project. This experiment is being conducted at the research farm of the Department of Agronomy, Acharya Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology (ANDUAT), Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, India. The present study focuses on legume crops and was carried out during the 2022 and 2023 growing seasons. 
&nbsp; 
Methods: The present investigation was conducted with ten treatments: T1-rice-wheat-fallow; T2-rice-wheat-green gram; T3- rice-french bean-green gram; T4-rice-gram-cowpea; T5-rice-mustard-green gram; T6-rice-linseed-black gram; T7-rice-berseem-sudan grass; T8-rice-oat-maize+cowpea; T9-rice-cauliflower-okra; and T10-rice-potato-cowpea (vegetable). 
&nbsp; 
Result: The rice-frenchbean-greengram cropping sequence consistently outperformed other sequences in terms of grain and straw yields, biological yield and soil microbial activity. The inclusion of legumes and their residues significantly enhanced both yields and soil health, leading to improved microbial populations and enzymatic activities, particularly dehydrogenase and urease.

Assessment of Legume Crops&#39; Impact on Soil Microbial Populations, Enzymatic Activities and Productivity under Rice-based Cropping Systems

<div>Background: Small millets and pulses are world&rsquo;s renowned crops for their nutritional significance. Being an underutilized species; rainfed farmers solely depend on them for their livelihood; which would be enhanced in a planned and efficient cropping system. The current study aimed to the identify suitable inter and sequential crops for rainfed little millet. 
 
Methods: In this study, four cropping patterns with two different row proportions for intercropping [viz., (4:1), (6:1)] were used with little millet as a main crop. The cropping systems include - little millet + pigeonpea [(4:1), (6:1)] followed by a sequential horsegram; little millet + pigeonpea followed by moth bean and little millet + lablab [(4:1), (6:1)] followed by Horsegram and little millet + lablab followed by mothbean.&nbsp; 
 
Result: Among them; a higher grain equivalent yield was observed in little millet + pigeonpea (6:1); followed by horsegram. However, higher dry matter, grain weight and higher individual crop yield was obtained in little millet + pigeonpea (6:1) followed by mothbean. Although individual mono cropping yields of these crops were higher; the pattern with little millet - pigeonpea (6:1) followed by horsegram could be recommended as a methodology to aid higher economic returns in shorter period.</div>

​Effect of Inter and Sequential Cropping of Pulses in Little Millet (Panicum sumatranse L.) based Cropping System

Background: Cotton production is labour intensive in almost all the developing countries where it is picked by hand. However, due to acute labour shortage in recent times, mechanized harvesting is gaining momentum. Mechanized harvesting requires the application of defoliants, which reduces the cost of labour used for picking cotton and maximum cotton can be picked in a single pick (one picking) and providing timely sowing of next crop. So, farmers can get benefit of two crops instead of one single long duration cotton crop. Researchers have conducted various studies on defoliation in cotton using different chemicals and different defoliation methods. However, in India their usage could not be exploited much due to their limited availability. 
 
Methods: A field experiment entitled &ldquo;Studies on defoliants in high density planting cotton-greengram sequence&rdquo; was conducted during 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 on clay soils at Agricultural College Farm, Bapatla. Crop diversification of cotton with pulses (Greengram) is an alternative cropping system for monocropping of cotton to get higher returns and high land use efficiency.&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 
Result: Total cotton equivalent yield was highest with dropp ultra @ 250 ml ha-1 (D1) which was on par with Etherel @ 3000 ppm (D3) in 2018 and in pooled data. 80% boll opening recorded maximum total cotton equivalent yield, which was on par with node above cracked boll. Land use efficiency and production use efficiency were highest in late sown (80% boll opening) plots. The highest net returns and returns per rupee investment were noticed with application of defoliant dropp ultra @ 250 ml ha-1 (D1) and at 80% boll opening.

Crop Diversification of Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) based Cropping System for High Resource Use Efficiency

Background: Crop establishment methods and nutrient management practices treatments were continuously practiced in the same plots since 2011-12 as a part of long-term experiment. A field study was conducted during 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 i.e. during 9th and 10th year of study to investigate the effects of CE methods and nutrient management on growth, physiological, biochemical, yield attributes and yield of rice crop. 
 
Methods: Field experiments were carried out at the Agricultural Research Farm, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, laid out in split plot design replicated thrice with four crop establishment (CE) methods viz., CT (puddled transplanted) rice-CT wheat (CE1),CTDSR rice-CT wheat (CE2), CTDSR- ZT wheat (rice residue retention) (CE3), ZT rice-ZT wheat (residue retention in rice and wheat) (CE4) in main plots and three nutrient management (NM) practices viz., FP (164 kg N, 50 kg P2O5, 32 kg K2O and 4 kg Zn ha-1) (N1), RFD (150 kg N, 60 kg P2O5, 60 kg K2O and 5 kg Zn ha-1) (N2) and SSNM- RWCM recommendation (N3). The rice variety used was &lsquo;Sarju-52&rsquo; in the present study. 
 
Result: The recorded data revealed that ZT rice&ndash;ZT wheat (CE4) recorded significantly higher plant height, tillers hill-1, leaf area, RWC, total chlorophyll content and protein content as compared to other CE methods. Among NM practices, SSNM-RWCM (N3) recorded significantly higher plant height, tillers hill-1, leaf area and protein content, whereas, RWC and total chlorophyll content did not differ significantly over farmer&rsquo;s practice and recommended fertilizer dose. Improved growth and physio-chemical attributes in ZT rice-ZT wheat (CE4) and SSNM-RWCM (N3) resulted in significantly higher panicles hill-1, fertility percentage and number of filled grains panicle-1 over other CE methods and NM practices. Panicle length, spikelets panicle-1 and test weight showed non-significant differences. Grain yield, straw yield and biological yield were significantly higher in ZT rice-ZT wheat (CE4) among CE methods and SSNM-RWCM (N3) among NM practices. The harvest index showed non-significant differences for CE methods and NM practices both.

Physiological and Biochemical Basis of Variation in Yield of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) under CA-based Crop Establishment Methods and Nutrient Management in R-W Cropping System