Conservation agriculture responses to productivity and profitability of mungbean under maize based cropping system in far western region of Nepal

The crop productivity of far western mid hills and river basin region is lower than that of the other regions of Nepal. The existing cultivation practices of this research area are conventional tillage with animal driven ploughing and crop residues removal practices. Low crop productivity results from poor crop management, low soil fertility and climatic variation. Conservation agriculture has been found as an effective crop management practice to rejuvenate soil fertility and increase crop yield. This research was conducted at the research field of Regional Agricultural Research Station, Bhagetada, Dipayal, Doti, Nepal during 2015-2016 with the objective of identifying suitable cereal based crop management practice for high crop productivity and profitability. It was carried out in split-split plot design with four replications at the plot size of 18 m2 area. The results revealed that the interaction of maize-lentil-mungbean cropping system, conservation agriculture and Kalyan variety of mungbean produced the grain yield of 15.62% (1.11 t ha-1) which were higher than that of the conventional agriculture practice. The interaction of the same cropping system, conservation agriculture and Kalyan variety produced net benefit of 106.69% (US $ 386.71 ha-1) and benefit to cost (B: C) ratio 46.04% (2.03) which were higher than that of conventional practice. Thus the maize-lentil-mungbean cropping system, conservation agriculture and Kalyan variety of mungbean could be appropriate for the farmers of far western river basin agro-environment of Nepal.