Potential Role of Maize-Legume Intercropping Systems to Improve Soil Fertility Status under Smallholder Farming Systems for Sustainable Agriculture in India (original) (raw)

The Indian population is growing rapidly (1.25 billion) and it has to fulfill its food and nutrition requirement. A collaborative strategy should be adopted for increasing productivity by intensifying available land use system. Intercropping is advanced management practices of soil fertility status, consisting of cultivating two or more crops in the same space at the same time, which have been practiced in past decades and achieved the goals of agriculture. The most common advantage of intercropping is the production of greater yield on a given piece of land by making more efficient use of the available resources using a mixture of crops of different rooting ability, canopy structure, height, and nutrient requirements based on the complementary utilization of growth resources by the component crops. Moreover, intercropping improves soil fertility through atmosphere nitrogen fixation from atmosphere (150 tons/year) with the use of legumes, increases soil conservation through greater ...