1. G. V. Ramanjaneyulu
AGRO-ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES FOR
SUSTAINING FARM BASED LIVELIHOODS

2. Agroecology: Several schools of thoughts
• Non Pesticidal Management
• Sustainable Agriculture
• Organic Farming
• Zero-Budget Natural Farming
• Permaculture
• Biodynamic farming
• Cho Global Natural Farming

3. Aligning with nature
• Crops
• Cropping Patterns
– Agro-diversity
– Crop cycles
• Production practices
– Natural products
– Natural cycles
– Natural processes

4. utilize all space
improve soil resilience
extend growing season
Enhance Diversity
Cropping sequence
Multistory arrangement
Integrating subsystems

5. Rainwater conservation measures
Conservation of the
entire rain water in the
field itself
Components include Trench,
Conservation furrows, Farm Pond,
compost pit , tank silt application.
Rs. 48,000 per acre - MGNREGS

6. Insitu water harvesting

8. Crop Choices
• Market demand
• Soil and growing conditions

9. Critical Stages of crop growth
• Paddy: tillering stage, flowering, milking
• Maize/jowar: flowering, panicle initiation, milking
• Groundnut: flowering, prop root stage, pod
formation
• Cotton: flowering, boll formation
• Soybean/redgram/greengram/blackgram:
flowering, grain formation
• Sunflower: bud formation, flowering, grain
formation

10. Crop duration Water requirement crops
One season (< 4 Low Greengram,
months blackgram, chickpea,
kharif groundnut
Medium Jowar, maize, rabi
groundnut,
More than one season More Cotton, chillies
(6-8 months)
Year or longer Very high Sugarcane, banana,
Mango, Citrus

11. Critical Stages of crop growth
• Paddy: tillering stage, flowering, milking
• Maize/jowar: flowering, panicle initiation, milking
• Groundnut: flowering, prop root stage, pod
formation
• Cotton: flowering, boll formation
• Soybean/redgram/greengram/blackgram:
flowering, grain formation
• Sunflower: bud formation, flowering, grain
formation

12. Crop Choices
• Market demand
• Soil and growing conditions

13. Crop duration Water requirement crops
One season (< 4 Low Greengram,
months blackgram, chickpea,
kharif groundnut
Medium Jowar, maize, rabi
groundnut,
More than one season More Cotton, chillies
(6-8 months)
Year or longer Very high Sugarcane, banana

14. Black soils- Vertisols and associated soils
Shallow soil Medium deep soil Deep soil
About 3.0 m ha of rainfed cotton soils are either shallow (< 50 cm or
medium deep (50-75 cm). Is Bt cotton the solution for these soils?

15. Hybrid cotton in
a deep soil
Hybrid in a shallow
soil. Hybrids don’t
perform well unless
supplemental
irrigation is available

16. Based on soil depth
• Shallow roots (60 cm): ragi, sama, korra, onion,
cauliflower, cabbage, potato
• Medium deep roots (90 cm): groundnut, chillies,
wheat, tobacco, castor
• Deep roots (120 cm): maize, sugarcane, jowar, bajra,
safflower, soybean, tomato, carrot, cucumber

17. Vidarbha–Rainfall Pattern and Water Requirement of Cotton
Moisture availability is extremely critical during boll formation phase
Short duration

18. How China made headway using HDPS with varieties
Year Population/ha Yield (kg/ha)
1980 90, 000 300
1990 120,000 900
2000 150,000 1500
2004 180,000 1800

19. High Density
Plantation in cotton
Straight varieties
1.Short duration 140-160 days,
2.Compact plant type
3.6-8 bolls per plant with
4.best quality and big bolls
5.High density at 250,000 /ha

20. CICR’s Results – 2010-
11
Seed cotton yield (kg/ha) – American
cotton 60x30 45x20
Spacing cm 30x 30 45x 13.5 30x20
Population/ha 55000 111000 111000 166000 166000 Mean
Anjali 502 847 853 966 796 793
CNH120MB 1030 976 1139 1250 1289 1137
PKV 081 1200 1714 1418 1921 1967 1644
NISC 50 1056 890 1103 1016 1052 1023
CCH 724 679 843 681 864 835 781
Mean 893 1054 1039 1203 1187

21. Seed cotton yield (kg/ha) in G
arboreum15 45 x 13.5 30 x 20 45 x 10 30 x 15
Spacing cm 60 x
Population/ha 111000 166000 166000 222000 222000 Mean
AKA-07 1163 1349 1456 1815 1419 1441
CINA-404 1430 1550 1610 2173 1772 1707
PA-255 1259 1595 1349 1625 1226 1411
PA-08 1090 1318 1455 1509 1479 1370
JK-5 1223 1452 1151 1842 1734 1480
Mean 1233 1453 1404 1793 1526
Spacing Genotypes Interaction
CD at
5% 71.1 73.6 164.6
CINA-404 out yielded others at all
planting densities, JK 5 and AKA 7
were more dwarf and compact.

22. Technology mission on cotton-network -results
Non-Bt Genotype under HDPS versus Bt hybrid-
(Spacing 45x15 cm for variety and 90x60 cm for Bt hybrid )
Yield (q/ha)
Parbhani Khandwa
Genotype 2010-11 2011-12 Genotype 2010-11 2011-12
NH-545 12.85 17.03 Vikram 18.47 14.72
NH-452 12.21 15.23 Khandwa 2 19.11 15.22
PKV-081 12.38 15.40 JK-4 20.14 16.04
Mallika Bt 13.88 — Jai Bt 13.38 —
Akola Nandyal
PKV-081 17.31 15.87 Narasimha 18.47 18.94
NH-615 16.19 16.19 Sivanandi 18.67 20.42
NH-630 19.07 16.46 NDLH-1938 25.10 23.55
Bunny Bt 10.28 — Bunny Bt 22.98 19.85

23. System of Rice Intensification
• System of Rice Intensification
is a cost effective and
resource efficient method of
cultivation
• Extended to sugarcane,
wheat, ragi etc
23

24. 1. Hilly terrain, Upland
Model 1 : (Paddy+Fish+ Azolla) + (pond+duck+fish) +
(Home stead garden) + (Livestock) + (Vermicompost)
Model 2: (Crop Field – Mixed Crop) + (Livestock) +
(Composting) + (Backyard vegetable)

25. Fruit Trees
Human
Pond + Hen shade
Homestead Garden
Cow, Goat
High slope, small Compost/Vermicompost
amount of land
around homestead Pig Shade

28. SPICES BASED CROPPING SYSTEMS

30. 2. Semiarid, undulated terrain
Upland with Degraded
soil and no irrigation
Mid-lands (rainfed) Mild Slopes
Fruit Trees
+ Community woodlots Mixed food grain +
Intercropping planted with for firewood-fodder- integrated farms +
Roselle, Pigeon Peas & other NTFP vegetable cultivation +
Blackgram during early productions Nitrogen fixing
stage & Yam at late stage + trees/shrubs as hedgerows
+ Improved or living fences +
Infiltration ditched and pastureland with tree Diamond beds for fruit
Semi-circular bunds canopy trees with vegetables
+ Contour line hedgerows +
water recharge and infiltration bunds.
water storage pond

31. Tuber crops are important strategic crop for dry areas.

32. Crop Management in Rain-fed areas
• Low water consuming crops
• Perennials on conservation furrows including green leaf
manure plants.
• 7 tiered crop canopy ( 36*36 model ) near farm pond.

33. Crop Management in Rain-fed areas
• Perennials on conservation furrows including green
leaf manure plants.
• Trees all around trench on farm boundary.
• Cropping pattern with red gram in between the
conservation furrows in 2:1 and 5:1 with millets and
groundnut respectively.

34. Courtesy: Dr. GNS Reddy, BAIF

35. Agronomic practices-Water harvesting, conservation and use

36. 36
Changing to multiple cropping systems

37. • Total land area 12 ha
• For every 2 ½ acres of land, pits for
rain water harvesting were dug.
• Every year, 10 tonnes of biomass
per acre of land is being
incorporated in the soil.
• Total trees in the farm are around
3000, among them 2000 are teak
plants others include mango,
sapota, neem, tamarind, jamun,
papaya, sithaphal etc.
• Trees helps in reducing temperature
by 3-4 0
• They also help in attracting birds to
kill pests and adding bio mass.
Subash Sharma, /Dorli, Yavatml, Maharashtra

39. Berry… Multi-tire pond
Neem,
Palmira/ Babool…
date palm
Pigeon pea…
St
ep

41. Midland (Pond bank Management)

43. Planted at a time, but harvested in different time span.
Mixed cropping of different root depth, different height…
Jowar,
Bajra…
Pigeon pea,
Guar …
Sesame,
Roselle… Ragi, Beans…
korra etc

44. 3. Humid region
Model 1 : (duck-Fish-Azolla-Paddy) + (Homestead Grden) +
(Biodigestor with Biogas plant) + (Livestock) + (pond + duckhouse
and scaffold over the pond).
Model 2 : banana + Fruit Trees + Creepers + Tuber + Fodder) +
(Biodegestor) + (Vegetable + Medicinal Plant + Azolla in home
stead) + (Apiculture + Mushroom)
Nutrition Garden : Leafy Vegetable + Vegetable + Spices
+ Tuber + Herbal + Beans

53. Crop Selected: (2 acre IFS Enterprise allocation
model):
Cereals:(50 percent area)
Rice, wheat,Maize
Vegetables(12.5 percent area)
Rabi-Tomato, Pea,
cabbage,Brinjal
Summer: Brinjal,Cowpea, Okra,
Cucurbits
Kharif:Cucurbits
Fodders (12.0% area)
Rabi: Berseem, Oat, Maize
Summer:Cow pea, Sudan
grass,maize
Kharif:Maize, MP chari/sudan
gras
Vegetables on field bunds(4%)
Rabi:Tomato,
Cauliflower/cabbage, Brinjal
Summer: cowpea ,Bitter gourd
and Okra
Kharif: Cucurbits

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