Fallow or Pulse? A Rainfed Cropping Decision in Bundelkhand
A farm household in Jhansi district holds 2.0 ha of light red sandy loam, about 60 cm deep over weathered granite. Mean rainfall is 750 mm, roughly 85% of it between mid-June and mid-September, but the last two seasons each had a 25-day dry spell in late July. The present system is sole long-duration pigeonpea (180 days, 90 cm × 20 cm), which yielded 7 q/ha last year. A neighbour kept his field fallow through the kharif and sowed wheat on 25 November, getting 18 q/ha with two irrigations from a dug well. The farmer now wants to drop pigeonpea and follow kharif fallow–wheat because "wheat gives more". He has a pair of bullocks, no tractor, about ₹8,000 per hectare for inputs, four goats that need fodder from June to October, and no assured canal supply.
1. Evaluate the proposal to replace pigeonpea with kharif fallow followed by wheat. What does the water balance and risk picture actually say?
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Start with what a kharif fallow really stores. On a shallow light red soil with 3–5% slope, bare-soil evaporation and runoff remove most of the monsoon rain. Profile storage at wheat sowing is typically no more than 15–25% of seasonal rainfall - here roughly 100–140 mm - and the soil's low water-holding capacity means much of that is lost before the November sowing. The neighbour's 18 q/ha therefore depended on the dug well, not on the fallow alone.
Then price the risk. Two irrigations over 2 ha means about 2,000–3,000 m³ from a well whose recharge depends on the same erratic monsoon. In a dry year the fallow-wheat plan leaves the household with no kharif income, no fodder for four goats and no soil cover, so erosion on the sloping field increases.
Compare the systems, not just the wheat yield. Pigeonpea at 7 q/ha is a lower but far more stable return, costs less to grow, fixes 30–40 kg N/ha, roots to 1.5 m or deeper, and supplies fodder and fuel. Its weakness is the 180-day duration, which exposes pod filling to a late-July or August dry spell.
Conclusion: do not go to complete fallow. Retain a pulse-based kharif but shorten the exposure window and add a partner crop and a fodder block. A whole-farm plan with 1.2 ha improved pigeonpea intercrop, 0.4 ha fodder sorghum plus berseem, and 0.4 ha contingency crop manages water, income and fodder together.
2. Design the intercrop you would recommend: geometry, seed rates, fertiliser and the moisture-conservation measures that go with it.
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Choice of system. A medium-duration pigeonpea (about 150 days) intercropped with sesame in 2:1 rows, or with urdbean in 1:1 rows where the farmer prefers a pulse partner. Sesame matures in 85–90 days and escapes the late dry spell; pigeonpea compensates afterwards because its roots explore deeper moisture.
Geometry and seed rate. Two pigeonpea rows 90 cm apart with a 30 cm sesame row between them, giving a 90/30 cm paired-row layout. Seed: 10–12 kg/ha pigeonpea plus 2 kg/ha sesame. For a 1:1 pigeonpea + urdbean system, use 15 kg/ha pigeonpea and 8 kg/ha urdbean on 60 cm rows with 15 cm plant spacing. Keep plant population of the main pulse close to a sole crop; the intercrop must not become a substitute for it.
Nutrition. On this soil, 20 kg N + 40 kg P2O5 + 20 kg K2O per hectare to the cereal/oilseed partner band, with a Rhizobium + PSB seed treatment for the pulse; no nitrogen to pigeonpea itself.
Moisture conservation. Contour bunding or field bunding at 0.5 m height with a grassed outlet, ridge-and-furrow sowing along the contour, straw or crop-residue mulch between rows, and a small farm pond or dug well used for one life-saving irrigation at pigeonpea flowering - the stage where a 25-day dry spell costs the most pods. Sowing with the first 25 mm of monsoon rain and thinning to one plant per hill at 20 days completes the package.
3. A 25-day dry spell occurs from 20 July. What should the farmer do, and what should he not do?
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Diagnose by stage, not by calendar. At 20 July, the pigeonpea is around 35–40 days old and entering flowering; sesame is at flowering and early capsule formation. Flowering is the most drought-sensitive point for both, so this is the moment to protect rather than abandon.
Actions, in order.
- Give the single life-saving irrigation from the dug well to the pigeonpea block, not to the whole farm - 3–4 cm per hectare is enough to carry flowering through, and a well that is spread over 2 ha helps neither crop.
- Do a light hoeing or inter-row cultivation to break the surface crust and reduce evaporation; keep the mulch in place.
- If sesame has wilted past recovery, harvest it for fodder rather than spending on it, and let pigeonpea take the space.
- Prepare the contingency: fodder sorghum or a short-duration cowpea on the 0.4 ha block if the monsoon fails again in August, so the goats are fed either way.
What not to do. Do not apply nitrogen to force growth - it raises water demand and wilting. Do not spray insecticides for wilting, which is moisture stress, not pest attack. Do not abandon the intercrop and plough up the field in July; an August recovery is common in Bundelkhand, and a re-sown crop would face the same rainfall risk.