"The system isn't stupid, but the people in it are."
What is a System?
A system is a group of interacting components operating together for a common purpose.
It can react as a whole to external stimuli.
It is unaffected directly by its own outputs.
It has a specified boundary based on the inclusion of all significant feedbacks.
Ecosystem
Any collection of organisms that interact or have the potential to interact, along with the physical environment in which they live, form an ecological system or ecosystem.
Ecosystems are dynamic systems with characteristic patterns of:
Energy flow
Nutrient cycling
Structural change
Agro-ecosystem
Agro-ecosystems are ecological systems modified by human beings to produce food, fibre, or other agricultural products.
Like ecological systems, agro-ecosystems are structurally and dynamically complex.
Their complexity arises from the interaction between socioeconomic and ecological processes.
Crop System
An arrangement of crop populations that transform solar energy, nutrients, water, and other inputs into useful biomass (food, feed, fuel, and fibre).
Comprised of soils, crops, weeds, pathogens, and insect subsystems.
The crop can be of different species and variety but constitutes one crop system if managed as a single unit.
A subsystem of the cropping system.
Example: In the maize crop system, maize is the dominant crop which is grown in association with other crops.
Cropping Systems
An important component of a farming system.
Represents a cropping pattern used on a farm and its interaction with farm resources, other farm enterprises, and available technology, which determine its makeup.
Defined as the order in which the crops are cultivated on a piece of land over a fixed period.
The way in which different crops are grown.
Sometimes a number of crops are grown together or separately at short intervals in the same field.
Cropping Pattern
The pattern of crops for a given piece of land.
The proportion of area under various crops at a point in time in a unit area.
Indicates the yearly sequence and spatial arrangements of crops in an area.
Difference Between Cropping Pattern and Cropping System
Cropping Pattern:
Crop rotation practiced by a majority of farmers in a given area or locality.
Yearly sequence and spatial arrangement of crops or crops and fallow on a given area.
The proportion of area under various crops at a point of time in a unit area.
Cropping System:
Cropping pattern and its management to derive benefits from a given resource base under specific environmental conditions.
The cropping patterns used on a farm and their interaction with farm resources, other farm enterprises, and available technology, which determine their make up.
Pattern of crops taken up for a given piece of land, or order in which crops are cultivated on a piece of land over a fixed period, associated with soil, management practices such as tillage, manuring, and irrigation.
Type and management of crops in time and space.
Land Resources
Land resources being limited, emphasis has to be placed on increasing production from a unit area of land in a year.
Cropping systems based on climate, soil, and water availability have to be evolved for realizing the potential production levels through efficient use of available resources.
Efficient Cropping Systems
Efficient cropping systems for a particular farm depend on farm resources, farm enterprises, and farm technology because the farm is an organized economical unit.
Farm resources include: land, labor, water, capital, and infrastructure.
When land is limited, intensive cropping is adapted to fully utilize available water and labor.
When sufficient and cheap labor is available, vegetable crops are also included in the cropping systems as they require more labor.
Capital-intensive crops like sugarcane, banana, turmeric, etc., find a space in the cropping system when capital is not a constraint.
In low rainfall regions (750
ewline
ewline \text{mm/annum}) monocropping is followed, and when rainfall is more than 750
ewline
ewline \text{mm}, intercropping is practiced.
With sufficient irrigation water, triple and quadruple cropping is adopted.
When other climatic factors are not limiting, farm enterprises like daring, poultry, etc., also influence the type of cropping system.
When the farm enterprises include dairy, the cropping system should contain fodder crops.
Importance of Systems Approach
In a system approach, all the components and activities are linked; they affect each other.
In agriculture, management practices were usually developed for individual crops.
However, farmers are cultivating different crops in different seasons based on their adaptability to a particular season, domestic needs, and profitability.
Therefore, production technology or management practices should be developed in view of all the crops grown in a year or more than one year if any sequence or rotation extends beyond one year.
Such a package of management practices for all crops leads to efficient use of costly inputs, besides a reduction in production cost.
Physical Resources, Soil, and Water Management in Cropping Systems
The objective of any cropping system is efficient utilization of all resources viz. land, water, and solar radiation, maintaining stability in production and obtaining higher net returns.
The efficiency is measured by the quantity of produce obtained per unit resource used in a given time.
The objective of traditional agriculture was to increase the production by two means:
by increasing area under cultivation
by increasing the productivity per unit area of the crop.
Two more dimensions are added to modern agriculture:
To increase the production per unit time.
To increase the production per unit space.
In the traditional cropping systems, mixtures, and rotations were developed by the farmers over years of experience by trial and error to suit specific ecological and sociological conditions to attain yield stability.
Modern scientific cropping has three pillars: (i) Genotype, (ii) Geometry of planting and (iii) management practices
Components of Modern Scientific Cropping
(i) Genotype: genetic makeup of the seed.
(ii) Geometry of planting: Shape of the planting pattern on the land surface. Space of the area for the individual plant. It may be circular, rectangular, square type or cubical. It is indirectly related to plant population.
Cubical pattern of planting has the maximum plant population.
Plant population may be defined as:
size of the area available to the individual plant,
number of plants per unit area.
(iii) Management practices: include all the practices of crop production. For the cropping system, management includes:
Type and arrangement of crops in time and space (i.e., cropping pattern).
Choice of variety.
Method of stand establishment.
Pest management and harvest
Classifications of Cropping System
1. Mono-cropping or Single Cropping:
Refers to growing only one crop on a particular land year after year.
Practice of growing only one crop in a piece of land year after year, e.g., growing only rabi crops in dry lands or only zaid crops in diary lands.
This is due to climatological and socioeconomic conditions or due to specialization of a farmer in growing a particular crop.
Monoculture: Practice of repetitive growing only crop irrespective of its intensity as rice-rice-rice.
Sole Cropping: One crop variety grown alone in pure stand at normal density.
2. Multiple Cropping or Polycropping:
A cropping system where two or three crops are grown annually on the same piece of land using high input without affecting basic fertility of the soil.
Growing two or more crops on the same piece of land in one calendar year
It includes inter-cropping, mixed cropping, and sequence cropping.
Polyculture: Cultivation of more than two types of crops grown together on a piece of land in a crop season.
Examples:
Subabul + Papaya + Pigeon pea + Dinanath grass.
Mango + Pineapple + Turmeric
Banana + Marigold + Berseem.
Relay Cropping:
Growing the succeeding crop when the previous crop is at its maturity stage.
Sowing of the next crop immediately after the harvest of the standing crops.
A system of cropping where one crop stands over land to the crop in quick succession.
Examples:
Paddy - lathyrus
Paddy - Lucerne.
Cotton - Berseem.
Rice – Cauliflower – Onion - summer gourds.
Overlapping Cropping:
In this system, the succeeding crop is sown in the standing crop before harvesting.
Thus, in this system, one crop is sown before the harvesting of preceding crops.
Advantages:
Minimum tillage is needed for relay cropping and primary cost of cultivation is less.
Weed infestation is less, as land is engaged with crops year round.
Crop residues are added to the soil and thus more organic matter.
Residual fertilizer of previous crops benefits succeeding crops.
Ley Farming:
Ley farming or ley rotation is one of the alternate land use systems aimed to increase food and fodder production and to enhance soil fertility concurrently.
In this system, grasses and or legumes are grown in rotation with arable crops.
The objective of the system is tonnage production of fodder and enhancing soil fertility.
Ley farming is more productive as well as sustainable against climate economic risk than cropping alone.
Alley Cropping:
Food crops are grown in alleys formed by hedgerows of trees or shrubs in arable lands.
It is also known as hedgerow intercropping.
Forage alley cropping is recommended as an alternate land use system for semi-arid regions with the main benefit of green fodder production during the dry season.
Alley cropping is an agro-forestry system in which fast-growing N-fixing shrubs are planted as hedgerows.
This system is most suitable for marginal and sub-marginal lands.
The essential feature of this is that hedge rows are cut back at about one meter height at planting and kept pruned during cropping to prevent shading and to reduce competition with field crops.
Advantages:
Provision of green fodder during the lean period of the year.
Higher biomass production per unit area than aerable year.
Efficient use of off-season rainfall in the absence of the crop.
Additional employment during the off-season.
It serves as a barrier to surface runoff leading to soil and water conservation.
Conservation based on objectives following three types of alley.
It improves soil fertility and is more remunerative under rainfed conditions.
System is recognized:
Forage alley cropping.
Forage cum mulch system.
a. Forage Alley Cropping:
In this system, both the yield of crop and forage assume importance.
Leucaena (Subabul), sesbania are recommended for hedgerows.
Pigeon pea or casters are suitable for growing in the allies.
Crop yields decrease with an increase in the row width.
b. Forage Cum Mulch System:
In this system, hedgerows are used for both forage and mulch lapping are used for mulching during the crop season.
c. Forage Cum Pole System:
Leucaena alleys are established at 5-meter intervals along the contours.
Hedge rows are established by direct seeding and topped every two months at 1.0m height during the crop season and every four months during the off-season.
A Leucaena plant at every 2 meters is allowed to grow into a pole.
Crop yields are usually reduced due to competition from the hedgerow.
Inter Cropping:
Growing of two or more crops simultaneously on the same piece of land with a definite row pattern, e.g., growing setaria + red gram in 5:1 ratio (after every 5 rows of setaria one row of red gram is sown).
Thus, cropping intensity in space dimension is achieved.
Multiple cropping in the form of intercropping is predominant in the regions of dry, humid, and semi-arid tropics.
Objectives of Intercropping Systems:
Insurance against main crop failure under aberrant weather conditions or pest epidemics.
Increase in total productivity per unit land area.
Judicious utilization of resources such as land, labor, and inputs.
Component Crop: is used to refer to either individual crops making up the intercropping situation.
Intercrop yield is the yield of a component crop when grown in intercropping and expressed over the total intercropped area (i.e., area occupied by both the crops).
A simple addition of both the intercrop yields a combined intercrop yield.
Base Crop: is the one that is planted as its optimum sole crop population in an intercropping situation, and the second crop is planted in between rows of the base crop for obtaining bonus yield from intercrop without affecting base crop yield.
Advantage of Intercropping
Intercropping gives additional yield and income/unit area than sole cropping.
It acts as an insurance against the failure of crops in an abnormal year.
Inter-crops maintain the soil fertility as the nutrient uptake is made from both layers of soil.
Reduction in soil runoff and controls weeds.
Intercrops provide shade and support to the other crop.
Intercropping system utilizes resources efficiently and their productivity is increased (Reddy and Reddi, 1992).
Intercropping with cash crops is highly profitable.
It helps to avoid inter-crop competition and thus a higher number of crop plants are grown per unit area
Types of Inter-Cropping:
a. Mixed intercropping: Growing two or more crops simultaneously with no distinct row arrangement.
b. Row intercropping: Growing two or more crops simultaneously where one or more crops are planted in rows.
c. Strip Inter-cropping: Growing two or more crops simultaneously in different strips wide enough to permit independent cultivation but narrow enough for the crops to interact ergonomically.
d. Relay inter-cropping: Growing two or more crops simultaneously during part of the life cycle of each. A second crop is planted after the first crop has reached its reproductive stage but before it is ready for harvest.
Inter-cropping may be divided into the following four groups (Singh 1990).
(i) Parallel Cropping: Under this cropping two crops are selected which have different growth habits and have a zero competition between each other and both of them express their full yield potential. E.g. 1) Green gram or black gram with maize.
2) Green gram or soybean with cotton.
(ii) Companion Cropping: In companion cropping the yield of one crop is not affected by other, In other words, the yield of both the crops is equal to their pure crops. That the standard plant population of both crops is maintained. E.g.1) Mustard, wheat, potato, etc. with sugarcane 2) Wheat, radish, cabbage, sugar beat etc., with potato.
(iii) Multistoried Cropping: or Multi-tire cropping: Growing plants of different heights in the same field at the same time is termed as multistoried cropping. It is mostly practiced in orchards and plantation crops for maximum use of solar energy even under high planting density.
1) Eucalyptus +Papaya + Berseem 2) Sometimes it is practiced under field crops such as Sugarcane + Potato + Onion. 3) Sugarcane + Mustard + Potato.
4) Coconut + Pineapple + Turmeric/Ginger.
(Iv. Multi-tire Cropping: Inter-cropping is mostly prevalent in plantation crops like coconut and areca nut. The practice different crops of varying heights, rooting pattern and duration are called multi-tire cropping. The objective of this system of cropping is to utilize the vertical space more effectively. In this system, the tallest components have foliage tolerant of strong light and high evaporative demand and the shorter component(s) with foliage requiring shade and or relatively high humidity. E.g. Coconut + black pepper + cocoa + pineapple.
Sequential Multiple Cropping
1. Sequence Cropping:
Defined as growing of two or more crops in sequence on the same piece of land in a farming year.
Crop intensification is only in time dimension and there is no intercrop competition.
Depending on the number of crops grown in a year. It is called as double, triple, and quadruple cropping involving two, three, and four crops, respectively.
3. Quadruple cropping: groundnut- leafy vegetables- wheat- summer green gram.
Crop rotation
Refers to the recurrent succession of crops on the same piece of land either in a year or over a longer period of time.
Component crops are so chosen so that soil health is not impaired. e.g. cottongram, sugarcane- wheat.
Growing a set of crops in a regular succession on a piece of land in a specific period of time, with an object to get maximum profit with least investment without impairing soil fertility. e.g. sorghum- gram, groundnut- wheat.
Characteristics of Good Crop Rotation:
It should be adaptable to the existing soil, climatic, and economic factors.
The sequence cropping adopted for any specific area should be based on proper land utilization or it should be so arranged in relation to fields that crop yields can be maintained and also result in building up organic matter content of the soil.
Rotation should contain sufficient area under soil improving crops (legumes) to maintain and also build up organic matter content of the soil.
In areas where legumes can be grown successfully, the rotation should provide sufficient acreage under legumes to maintain “N” supply of the soil.
It should provide food grains, pulses, oilseed, etc. to the family and roughages, fodder to cattle.
It should provide the maximum area under the most profitable crops adapted to the area.
It should be so arranged to make for economy in production. There is an overall increase in the yield of crops mainly due to maintaining physical - chemical properties of the soil.
It helps in controlling insects, pests, and soil-borne diseases. It also controls weeds. e.g. repeated wheat culture (growing) increases wild oats and Phalaris infestation.
Prevent or limit periods of peak requirements of irrigation water. Crops requiring high irrigation if followed by light irrigation, this will not affect or deteriorate the soil's physical condition.
It facilitates even distribution of labor. Following the crop make proper utilization of all resources and inputs.
Farmers get a better price for his produce due to higher demand in the local market. So there is a regular flow of income over the year.
Inclusion of crops of different feeding zones (root system) and nutrient requirements could maintain the better balance of nutrients in soil. Growing crops of different root depths avoids continuous depletion of nutrients from the same depth.
Production and labor utilization.
The Factors of Crop Rotation
Net profit per hectare.
Growth habit and nutrient requirement of different crops.
Soil type and slope.
Infestation of weeds, pests, and diseases.
Irrigation facilities.
Climatic conditions.
Land, labor, power, and other resources.
Food habit and requirements.
Market facilities.
Ratoon cropping/ratooning
One of the important methods of intensive cropping, allowing the stubbles of the original crop to strike again after harvesting and to raise another crop.
Live mulch cropping
Live mulch crop production involves planting a food crop directly into a living cover of an established cover crop without tillage or the destruction of the fallow vegetation.