Soil Properties Influenced by Tillage and Crop Residue management Practices In Groundnut Base Cropping System in Vertisols of Saurashtra Region of Gujarat

Abstract

From agricultural point of view depth of soil is an important issue in Saurashtra as majority of the soils are shallow to medium in depth (Meena et al., 2017 and Gandhi and Savalia, 2016). Further, farmers resort to intensive tillage practices and burning of crop residues exposing soils to various kinds of degradation processes. Therefore, there is need to develop technologies encompassing minimum tillage, retention of residues, and crop rotations for not only to conserve the soils but also to minimize environmental pollution and reduce cost of cultivation. Keeping in view above facts a field experiment was initiated during kharif 2015 to study the impact of tillage and residue management practices on productivity of groundnut+pigeonpea and groundnut+cotton cropping systems and soil properties.