Integrated management enhances crop physiology and final yield in maize intercropped with blackgram in semiarid South Asia

T Varatharajan; Anchal Dass; Anil K Choudhary; S Sudhishri; V Pooniya; T K Das; G A Rajanna; Shiv Prasad; Karivaradharajan Swarnalakshmi; M N Harish; Shiva Dhar; Raj Singh; Rishi Raj; Kavita Kumari; Arjun Singh; K S Sachin; Pramod Kumar

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.975569

Integrated management enhances crop physiology and final yield in maize intercropped with blackgram in semiarid South Asia

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Sep 23:13:975569. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.975569. eCollection 2022.

Authors

T Varatharajan¹, Anchal Dass¹, Anil K Choudhary^{1

2}, S Sudhishri¹, V Pooniya¹, T K Das¹, G A Rajanna^{1

3}, Shiv Prasad¹, Karivaradharajan Swarnalakshmi¹, M N Harish^{1

4}, Shiva Dhar¹, Raj Singh¹, Rishi Raj¹, Kavita Kumari¹, Arjun Singh^{1

5}, K S Sachin¹, Pramod Kumar¹

Affiliations

¹ Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, India.
² Central Potato Research Institute, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Shimla, India.
³ Directorate of Groundnut Research, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Ananthapur, India.
⁴ Farm Science Centre, Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Gonikoppal, India.
⁵ National Research Centre for Banana, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Tiruchirappalli, India.

Abstract

Photosynthesis, crop health and dry matter partitioning are among the most important factors influencing crop productivity and quality. Identifying variation in these parameters may help discover the plausible causes for crop productivity differences under various management practices and cropping systems. Thus, a 2-year (2019-2020) study was undertaken to investigate how far the integrated crop management (ICM) modules and cropping systems affect maize physiology, photosynthetic characteristics, crop vigour and productivity in a holistic manner. The treatments included nine main-plot ICM treatments [ICM₁ to ICM₄ - conventional tillage (CT)-based; ICM₅ to ICM₈ - conservation agriculture (CA)-based; ICM₉ - organic agriculture (OA)-based] and two cropping systems, viz., maize-wheat and maize + blackgram-wheat in subplots. The CA-based ICM module, ICM₇ resulted in significant (p < 0.05) improvements in the physiological parameters, viz., photosynthetic rate (42.56 μ mol CO₂ m^-2 sec^-1), transpiration rate (9.88 m mol H₂O m^-2 sec^-1) and net assimilation rate (NAR) (2.81 mg cm^-2 day^-1), crop vigour [NDVI (0.78), chlorophyll content (53.0)], dry matter partitioning toward grain and finally increased maize crop productivity (6.66 t ha^-1) by 13.4-14.2 and 27.3-28.0% over CT- and OA-based modules. For maize equivalent grain yield (MEGY), the ICM modules followed the trend as ICM₇ > ICM₈ > ICM₅ > ICM₆ > ICM₃ > ICM₄ > ICM₁ > ICM₂ > ICM₉. Multivariate and PCA analyses also revealed a positive correlation between physiological parameters, barring NAR and both grain and stover yields. Our study proposes an explanation for improved productivity of blackgram-intercropped maize under CA-based ICM management through significant improvements in physiological and photosynthetic characteristics and crop vigour. Overall, the CA-based ICM module ICM₇ coupled with the maize + blackgram intercropping system could be suggested for wider adoption to enhance the maize production in semiarid regions of India and similar agroecologies across the globe.

Keywords: blackgram intercropping; conservation agriculture; cropping systems; dry matter partitioning; integrated crop management; photosynthetic rate.