Effect of conservation agriculture-based tillage practices on growth and productivity potential of rabi crops

Tillage a pivotal practice for seed bed preparation, soil moisture conservation and weed control which ultimately leads to greater crop production. The present study was a long-term maize-based conservation agriculture field experiment which was established in 2013-14 at experimental farm of Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur. It was devised to compare the effect of zero tillage, permanent beds and the conventional tillage on growth and yield of the fifth year rabi season crops. In the split plot design, three tillage practices viz. zero tillage (ZT), conventional tillage (CT) and permanent bed (PB) were kept in main plot and four rabi crops viz. wheat, rabi maize, mustard and chickpea were kept in sub plot and the treatment combination were replicated thrice. The results revealed that higher grain yield of wheat was recorded under PB (5488 kg ha-1) over ZT and CT while, the higher grain yield of rabi maize (11279 kg ha-1), mustard (970 kg ha-1) and chickpea (1936 kg ha-1) was recorded in ZT over CT. Conservation agriculture-based tillage practices viz. zero tillage and permanent bed along with residue retention resulted in significant increase in plant height, biomass production and productivity of rabi crops as compared to conventional tillage practice.