1) Pulses play an important role in conservation agriculture by diversifying crop rotations and intercropping systems. They improve soil quality, fix nitrogen, and reduce weed and pest pressures when integrated into cereal-based systems. 2) Studies have shown the highest yields in systems that include pulses like maize-wheat-mungbean compared to continuous maize-wheat. Pulses also perform well in intercropping, as cover crops, and can be grown on residual soil moisture after rice harvest. 3) The inclusion of pulses improves soil organic carbon, nitrogen content, and physical properties. They also reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizer in subsequent crops through biological nitrogen fixation and nutrient recycling.

1. Role of Pulses in Conservation Agriculture
1
AGRN 723 : Agronomy of Major Cereals and Pulses
SUBMITTED TO:
Dr. Vikram Singh
Associate Professor
Department of Agronomy
NAI,SHUATS
SUBMITTED BY:
Suman Kumar Dey
Id. No: 19MSAGRO070
Department of
Agronomy
M.Sc. Ag.(Agronomy)
II semester

2. Contents
2
Introduction
Status of conservation agriculture in India and
abroad
Role of Pulses in Conservation Agriculture
Reference

3. Introduction
Conservation agriculture :
 Conservation agriculture is a management system that maintains a
soil cover through surface retention of crop residues with no till/zero
and reduced tillage. CA is described by FAO as a concept for
resource saving agricultural crop production which is based on
enhancing the natural and biological processes above and below the
ground.
3
 It aims to conserve, improve and
make more efficient use of natural
resources through integrated
management of available soil, water
and biological resources combined
with external inputs. It can also be
referred to as resource efficient or
resource effective agriculture.

4. Status of conservation agriculture in India and
abroad
 Globally, CA is being practiced on about 125 M ha. The major CA
practicing countries are USA (26.5 M ha), Brazil (25.5 M ha),
Argentina (25.5 M ha), Canada (13.5 M ha) and Australia (17.0 M
ha). In India, CA adoption is still in the initial phases. Over the past
few years, adoption of zero tillage and CA has expanded to cover
about 1.5 million hectares.
4
 The CA adoption also offers avenues
for much needed diversification
through crop intensification, relay
cropping of sugarcane, pulses,
vegetables etc. as intercrop with wheat
and maize and to intensify and
diversify the RW system. Menna et. at. (2016)

5. Role of Pulses in Conservation Agriculture
1. Crop Diversification:
 After the green revolution, area under the rice-wheat system in
north-west parts and rice-rice in east-south parts has increased
considerably due to high productivity and profitability with less risk.
 In set of long-term study in which maize- wheat system was
compared with pigeonpea- wheat, maize- wheat, maize- chickpea, and
maize- wheat- mungbean. Highest system yield (3, 411 kg/ha) was
recorded in maize- wheat-mungbean followed by pigeonpea- wheat
and least under maize- wheat.
 Trials on resource conservation revealed that maize- wheat-
mungbean performed better than maize-wheat system in terms of
productivity and sustainability.
5

6. Cont…
6
Nadarajan et. al. (2015)
Long-term effect of maize based cropping system on system
productivity (MWMb=Maize-Wheat-mungbean; MWMC=
maize-wheat followed by maize-chickpea; PW= pigeonpea
wheat ).
Fig. 1

7. Cont…
2. Pulses in Inter-cropping :
 The major considerations for intercropping are the contrasting
maturities, growth rhythm, height and rooting pattern and variable
insect pest and disease associated with component crops so that these
complement each other rather than compete for the resources and
guard against weather adversities.
7Fig. 2 Fig.3

8. Cont…
8
Fig. 4 Fig. 5
 Here is some of the inter- cropping systems are- Rice+cowpea,
Rice+Sunhemp,Maize+Blackgram,Maize+Cowpea,Cassava+Greengram,C
assava+Groundnut ,Cassava+Cowpea & White+Pea.
 The inter cropping system will enhance the yield, test weight and available
nitrogen content after harvest and reduces the weed growth (Figure 3.) in the
system and weed smothering efficiency of pulses in inter cropping system is
shown in Figure 4. The pest and disease control property of pulse in a system is
dedicted by Figure 5 and Figure 6 respectively.
Adarsh et. al. (2019)

9. Cont…
3. Pulses in Rice Fallow :
 A considerable area remains fallow after rice harvest in India. Pulses
like lentil, chickpea, mungbean and blackgram can be successfully
grown under this situation following RCTs practices. Under this system
a number of abiotic factors related to soil and water lead to poor
productivity. Low moisture content in the soil after rice harvest, soil
structure, soil water deficit, poor aeration affect rice fallows seed
germination.
9
 Under such hostile situation, pulses can be
successfully grown on residual soil moisture after
rice harvest following resource conservation
practices for soil moisture conservation. The
improvement in soil structure, microbial
population and organic matter build-up was
recorded with growing pulses after rice harvest. Potential pulses area under rice–
fallows in eastern India (Annual
Report DPD 2016–17).
Fig. 6

10. Cont…
4. Conservation Tillage :
 Conservation tillage with suitable cropping systems is helpful to
maintain soil health, increase water use efficiency and check erosion
In fact higher yield of pulses after wet season rice with reduced
tillage was also reported from the rainfed areas of eastern India.
10
 A study on soil moisture conservation effect
on rainfed chickpea afterrice harvest at IIPR,
Kanpur revealed that chickpea can be
successfully grown on residual soil moisture
after rice harvest.
 The highest relative water content at
flowering stage was also recorded in zero
tillage + dibbling sowing + mulching (72.4%)
Nadarajan et. al. (2015)
Fig. 7

11. Cont…
5. FIRB Planting System :
 Furrow Irrigated Raised Bed (FIRB) system of planting is an
agronomic intervention where crops are sown on raised beds. The
concept of raised bed planting is very advantageous in both water
logged and limited water area.
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 In a studies at IIPR, Kanpur revealed that
planting of 2 lines on raised beds size 75 cm
enhances seed yield by 33.6% in urdbean, 15%
in chickpea and 16% in lentil over conventional
system of planting. Nadarajan et. al. (2015)[Fig. 8]
6. Residues Management :
 Crop residues are good sources of plant nutrients and are important
components for the stability of agricultural ecosystems.

12. Cont…
12
 About 25% of nitrogen and phosphorus, 50% of
sulfur, and 75% of potassium uptake by cereal
crops are retained in crop residues, making them
valuable nutrient sources.
 In rice-chickpea sequence, yield of chickpea was
significantly influenced by rice-residue
incorporation and highest seed yield was obtained
with incorporation of chopped straw + irrigation,
while lowest yield was obtained in rice residue
removal treatment.
Kumar et al. (2012)
Fig. 9
7. Improvement in Soil Quality :
In rice-wheat and other cereal- cereal systems, major concern for
sustainability is decline in soil physico-chemical properties. The
process of decline in soil quality can be reversed by inclusion of
pulses in the cereal based system. The improvement in bulk density,
porosity, infiltration and other physical parameters.

13. Cont…
Table 1
Table 1
Table 1
13
Table 1 Table 2Adash et al. (2019)
Fig.10 soil
organic carbon
content and
Fig,11. depicts
the nitrogen
content in soil
after harvest in
rice-rice-greenAdarsh et. al. (2019)Fig, 10 Fig. 11
gram, rice-rice-sesame, rice-rice-onion, maize-rice-sesame and groundnut- rice-black
gram cropping systems.

14. Cont…
8. Nitrogen Economy :
14
 Pulses can fix 30-150 kg N/ha depending
upon rhizobial population, host crop and
varieties, management level and
environmental conditions.
 The N-sparing and synergistic effects of
pulses are well recognized. The intrinsic
nitrogen fixing capacity of pulse crops
enables them to meet large proportion of
their nitrogen requirement and also helps in
economizing nitrogen in succeeding non-
legume crops.
Adarsh et. al. (2019)Fig. 12
9. Cover Crop :
 Loss of soil from both agricultural and non-agricultural lands is a
serious problem throughout the world. Cover crops are fast growing
crops planted primarily to check soil erosion.

15. Cont…
 Several pulse crops like mungbean, urdbean, cowpea, ricebean,
horsegram etc. have dense canopy and thus protect the surface soil
against beating action of raindrops and thus reduce splash erosion.
 Pulse crops like pigeonpea and mothbean reduce wind erosion. The
other benefits of using pulses as cover crops are to manage soil
quality, weeds, pests and diseases.
10. Nutrient Recycling :
 Pulses being deep rooted crops have ability to recycle soil nutrients
available in deeper layer resulting in more efficient use of applied
fertilizer.
 It also prevent loss of nutrient particularly nitrate below root zone
of shallow rooted cereal crops in rotation. The association of pulse
crops roots with VAM helps in increasing availability of nutrients
and water to crop plants.
15

16. Cont…
11. Non-nitrogenous Benefits :
 Inclusion of pulse crops in cropping system not only economizes
nitrogen requirement but also helps in efficient utilization of native
phosphorus due to secretion of certain acids by their roots which
solubilises fixed or unavailable phosphorus.
 Thus, pulses not only efficiently utilize the native phosphorus but
also increase their availability to other crops in the system.
 Chickpea has the ability to access P normally not available to other
crops by mobilizing sparingly soluble Ca-P through acidification of
rhizospere through its citric acid root exudates in Vertisols.
12. Reduce Nitrate Pollution and Green House Gases
(GHGs):
 Choice of appropriate cropping systems and management practices16

17. Cont…
minimize nitrate leaching besides improving N use efficiency.
Sugarcane + urdbean and pigeonpea + maize resulted in low nitrate
nitrogen leaching as compared to sole cropping.
 Pulses are known to fix atmospheric nitrogen of about 30-150 kg
N/ha. Most of the nitrogen remains in soil for succeeding crop. The
nitrogen fertiliser efficiency to succeeding crop was reported upto 40-
80 kg/ha. Therefore, pulses reduce the total fertiliser requirement of
succeeding cereal crops. Thus, reduced demand of fertilisers will
finally reduce the GHGs emission by fertiliser industries.
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18. Reference
Adarsh S., Jacob J. and Giffy T. Role of Pulses in Cropping
Systems,2019. Kerala Agricultural University.
Bhan S. and Behera U.K. Conservation agriculture in India –
Problems, prospects and policy issues.2014. International Soil
and Water Conservation Research, 2(4):1-12.
Kumar R.,Mishra J.S., Upadhyay P.K. and Hans H. Rice fallows
in the eastern India: Problems and prospects, 2019. Indian
Journal of Agricultural Sciences ,89 (4): 567–77.
Nadarajan N. and Kumar N. Role of Pulses in Conservation
Agriculture,2018. System Based Conservation Agriculture.
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