Effect of different tillage practices on production of mustard in 10-year old Dalbergia sissoo based agroforestry system

Abstract

The field experiment was conducted to test the effect of different tillage practices on production of mustard in 10-year-old Dalbergia sissoo based Silvi-Agriculture system at National Research Center for Agroforestry, Jhansi, India. during rabi season. Growth and yield attributes were recorded on both the components viz., trees and crops and were analyzed in Randomized Block Design by applying the technique of analysis of variance (P<0.05). In general, growth parameters of agri-component at different distances from the tree base (0.5 m, 1.0 m, 2.0 m, 3.0 m and 4.0 m) viz., average germination, number of branches plant-1, plant height, length of siliquae (cm), number of siliquae plant-1, number of grain siliquae-1, test weight (1000 seeds), grain yield (gm) in 0.5 m2 quadrate grain yield (Kg ha-1) were 19.47 %, 7.92 %, 34.80 %, 4.74 %, 6.50%, 6.27%, 7.89 %, 6.46%, 160% significantly higher in plots treated with deep ploughing than in plots treated with normal tillage. It was found that agri component growth and yield performance was better in pure crop (182.24 %) when compared to tree crop interaction. While growth and productivity attributes of tree components were found slightly better in normal ploughing (ploughed with cultivar) than in deep ploughing (ploughed with disc plough), though the differences were statistically not significant.