Indian Society of Genetics & Plant Breeding

Revisiting the agro-ecological zones for crop evaluation

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Food and nutritional security on sustainable basis are the
major challenges of the 21st Century. The domestic
production needs to be increased @2% for cereals and
pulses and 0.6% per annum for oilseed to meet the
projected demand by the year 2030. The speed of the
expansion of irrigation potential of 140 m ha is very tardy
at present. Irrigation has been possible in only 83 m ha
upto 2005-06. Improving the efficiency of water under
rainfed situation holds a promise to increase the
productivity. Frontline demonstration results showed a
large gap between farmers’ yield and achievable yield. This
gap can be filled considerably by adopting a sustainable
management approach of natural resources. It requires
knowledge of sound agronomic principles, broader
understanding of constraints and interaction of biotic and
abiotic stresses in developing crop genetic bases for
diversifying production while ensuring the efficiency of
resource use. Under rainfed conditions, the yield of deeprooted crops in cracking clay soils (Vertisols) depends
primarily on the amount of rain entered and stored at depth
in soil profile, and the extent to which this soil water is
released during the crop growth. Recent research results
obtained at NBSS&LUP [16, 17, 19] indicate that both
retention and release of soil water are governed by the
nature and content of clay minerals, and also by the nature
of exchangeable cations. In arid and semi-arid environment
the subsoils become sodic due to accelerated rate of
formation and accumulation of pedogenic CaCO3. This
process impairs the sHC. Therefore, it has become
imperative to revise the AESR boundaries incorporating
revised LGP estimates based on soil properties. AESR map
is a useful tool to plan the crop suitability based on length
of growing period. The revision of LGP estimates involving
the influence of drainage related soil properties might
provide a better insight into the AESRs. It might also
involve revising AESR boundaries to bring the latest soil,
climate information generated during the last 20 years.
 

Keywords: Agro-ecological zones, crop evaluation

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Year: 2009
Volume: 69
Issue: 4
Article DOI: N/A
Print ISSN: 0019-5200
Online ISSN: 0975-6906

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