The major objective of dry farming programme is to conserve the soil and moisture and to achieve maximum production from the dry farn1ing areas. In the past two decades, we have been able to' solve many hurdles in the aforesaid areas but there had been no break through as in case of irrigated crop production. Now we have the promising crop varieties and technology available with us about the maximum soil and water conservation. The agronomic approaches can be dealt with under the following four heads based on land types. 1. Agronomic approaches for highly undulating lands

These lands are confined to the hills of the locations which have suffered serious soil erosion problems and have been divided into various gullies. The soils of these areas are more prone to further erosion if they are not properly managed. Therefore, in this category, the crop management practices are entirely different from other areas. The object of soil and crop management under such situation should be :
a. to stabilize the soil by forestry and pasture management with a regulated grazing or no grazing at all.
b. to level the land gradually through contour bunding, terracing, etc.
c. to practise strip cropping and pitcher farn1ing.

2. Agronomical approaches for marginal lands


Generally, marginal lands are very poor in fertility. The crop management in these lands is carried out in lines of crop management for leveled lands or flat lands which will be discussed later in this chapter.

3. Agronomical approaches for diara lands

Diara lands are located on either side of rivers or between two rivers and are often flooded by these rivers. These diara lands are formed due to flood and may have deposition of fine to coarse sands.

These areas often lack irrigation and need a careful crop management. Since the land of this areas is highly susceptible to floods, kharif cropping is practically impossible. But certain fodder crops can easily be grown soon after the onset of monsoon and harvested depending upon position of floods. The harvesting or cutting of crops is started from close to the river beds and as the water spreads the harvesting is also advanced. The life saving irrigations can be given by lifting water from the river or by drilling cavity wells or bam boo borings. However, in most of the cases these wells go out of order after a flood occurs. Therefore, the cavity wells or bamboo borings are made at a distant location from river stream.

4. Agronomical approaches for plain lands

Plain lands form the main dry land tracts of the country. There has been major emphasis on finding out ways and means through which the total soil productivity could be increased. Following recommendations should be followed on plain lands for an improved crop productivity and an efficient soil and water conservation.

a. Tillage requirements of the crops
Tillage starts with the seed red preparation and ends with mulching and control of weeds. Deep ploughing during summer helps in destroying weeds and suppressing insect pests and diseases. It also helps in an efficient root penetration very deep into soil Placement of seed at 5 cm and fertilizers at 7.5 cm in the same furrow followed by soil compaction have resulted in better germination, plant vigour, extensive root development and higher crop yields.

b. Selection or crops and varieties

There are a number of improved varieties of different crops which are drought tolerant or resistant to water stress. The most commonly grown crops in dry lands are rice, maize, sorghum, pearl millet. finger millet, wheat, barley, pulses, oilseeds, etc. The improved varieties of these crops have already been described area-wise.

c. Sowing of crops
Sowing of crops deals with several associated factors namely sowing time, method of sowing, depth of sowing etc. It is important in the sense that once the ideal plant population is achieved. the crop is bound to give yield.

Sowing time can markedly influence the production and productivity of dry land crops. Early sowing of kharif crops results in early crop maturity and thereby it facilitates early sowing of succeeding rabi crops. Early sowing of rabi crops helps in overcoming the moisture stress at later stages of plant growth, particularly at grain filling stage.

Broadcasting of seeds should be avoided as it involves several losses and seed does not properly come in contact with moisture. Placing the seeds at about 5 cm depth through pora or seed drill is desirable.

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To get an ideal plant population it is necessary that about 25% higher than required seed rate should be applied. Care must be taken to reduce plant competition for moisture by removing excess plant population about 2-3 weeks after the sowing depending upon the crops.

d. Fertilizer management
Use of fertilizers in dry lands is limited as compared to irrigated areas. Today we use on 'an average only 60kg/ha fertilizers in dry fanning areas as against 60 kg/ha national average. Reasons for application of fertilizers in dry fanning are as follows: i. poor response because of faulty method of application; ii. poor financial condition of fanners to purchase fertilizer; iii. wrong concept of the fanners that fertilizers will burn the seedlings, and harm to the soil; and iv. application of organic manure only, which can not meet the total nutrient requirement of the crop.

There are different Schools of thoughts about the application of fertilizers in the dry lands. Some people think that application of fertilizers in dry lands results in a better crop yield than that in irrigated areas because in the latter case the soil becomes very poor in residual fertility due to high intensity of cropping, whereas, the dry lands still preserve nutrients as they are not depleted badly due to low cropping intensity. Some people think that fertilizer application in dry lands aggravates the moisture problem, but truly speaking deep placement of fertilizers followed by foliar application results in extensive rooting up to deeper soil layers where the plants extract moisture to meet their demands.


Next : Cropping systems for dryland agriculture