Nutrient Management through Organics in Pea - Buckwheat Cropping System under Dry Temperate Conditions of North Western Himalayas

In the dry temperate region, growing of a single crop in a year is a common feature of cropping. The shrinking of per capita land availability further warrants temporal and spatial intensification of cropping. Therefore, pea-buckwheat has been evolved as one of the potential cropping sequences in the temperate region. The present study focuses on organic nutrient management in peas and subsequent residual activity on common buckwheat. Vermicompost at 3.0 and 4.5 t/ha, FYM 20 t/ha, Vermicompost 1.50 t/ha + FYM 10 t/ha and vermicompost 3.0 t/ha + FYM 3.0 t/ha were compared to recommended application of NPK (20:60:30 kg N, P2O5 and K2O in peas only) and control (no fertilizer). In buckwheat, only the residuals of the treatments were studied. During the first year, inorganic nutrient management treatment resulted in significantly higher pods/plant, seeds/pod, green pea yield, pea equivalent yield, gross and net returns and B:C over the organic nutrient management treatments. However, in the second year, organic nutrient management treatments gave higher yield of peas, pea equivalent yield and gross returns over the organics. Organic nutrient management treatments involving vermicompost in general were superior to inorganics in influencing branches/plant, seeds/plant and seed yield of buckwheat during both the years. Vermicompost 4.5 t/ha was comparable to vermicompost 1.5 t/ha + FYM 10 t/ha and vermicompost 3.0 t/ha + FYM 10 t/ha for the yield attributes and yield of peas and buckwheat, green pea equivalent yield, gross and net returns and B:C.