Machinery for Biomass Incorporation into soil

Abstract

Soil, Water, and Nutrients are major resources that contribute higher productivity of rainfed agriculture. The average productivity of rain fed agriculture is ranging 1-2 tone/ha. Rain fed agriculture contributes about 44% of food grain basket and supporting forty percent of the population. Technological improvements after first green revolution helps in increasing productivity of overall agriculture but productivity specifically of rain fed agriculture need to be further increased to meet the consumption demand in coming years. It is estimated that about two fold of rain fed productivity to be increased to meet the food grain demand by 2025. This is a challenge for researchers, policy makers and all the people directly or indirectly associated with agriculture. There is tremendous scope for improving the productivity in rain fed farming by managing natural and man-made resources. Rain fed farming has many typical problems due to certain inherent characteristics. Soil degradation is one it. The application of chemical fertilizer triggered average productivity during last three decades but on other hand soil quality decline severely because of imbalance nutrients. Inadequate rainfall and imbalanced nutrients are major cause low productivity in rainfed. Increased rate of fertilizer not only reduces the soil productivity but also increase the health hazard and cost of agricultural production. Review shows that integrated nutrient management is the best option to mitigate soil degradation in rainfed agriculture. Biomass of legumes along with chemical fertilizer not only reduces cost of production, but also maintains soil quality. In this view biomass production and its incorporation in soil has become prime importance in rain fed agriculture. The importance of biomass incorporation in sustainability of rainfed agriculture can be expressed in several ways. These are: (a) to reduce dependence on the on chemical fertilizers (b) to meet short of macro and micronutrients (c) to improve the soil physical health (d) to promote low cost input farming (e) it controls pathogens in the soil. Several experiments have shown that biomass incorporation is viable practice in rainfed agriculture by managing crops within stipulated time. Biomass though it is well known the practice is required to be further strengthened by proper planning in agricultural production system and creating awareness among the farmers by providing technical support. In rain fed, about 12-15 tone/ha fresh biomass can be produced by managing the time and cropping system. This can be ploughed to the field for enriching soil fertility and improving water retention capacity. It is timely to assess the requirement of biomass to be grown to meet the national challenges. Besides scope of biomass incorporation in rainfed agriculture for improving soil fertility the practice is not pervaded to the farmers field due to non-availability of suitable machines.