9th Class Science Improvement in food resources Crop Production Management

        Crop Production Management

India is a large country with three fourth of the population depending on agriculture. Natural resources like forest, agriculture, and fisheries are the main stay for Indian economy. Due to the subtropical climate and lack of forest in most part of country, crop can be grown throughout the year. In India there are three types of farmer that is small farmers, marginal farmers, and progressive farmers. The extent to which farmer can grow crops depends on his financial condition and the resources he can have.

• Nutrient Management: Just as human being needs nutrient for his growth and development, the plants also requires nutrient for its proper growth and development. Plants get its nutrients from soil, water and air. There are sixteen nutrients required by the plants for its proper growth and development. These nutrients are divided into two groups as macronutrients and micronutrients. Out of these, carbon and oxygen are supplied by air, hydrogen is supplied by water and remaining thirteen nutrients are supplied by soil.
• Micronutrients: The nutrients which are required by the plants in small quantity are called the micronutrients. There are seven micronutrients such as chlorine, zinc, copper, iron, manganese, boron, and molybdenum.
• Macronutrients: The nutrients which are required by the plants in large quantity are called macronutrients. There are six macronutrients as nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, sulphur and magnesium.

          Manure

Manures are obtained from the natural materials, such as, decomposition of plant waste and animal waste. These manures include compost, green manures, vermicompost, and farmyard manure. These manures helps to improve the physical properties of soil, reduce the soil erosion, increase the moisture holding capacity of soil and are cheaper. It also do not cause environmental pollution. There are some disadvantages of using natural manure the nutrient content of manure is very low and hence required in large quantity. They are inconvenient to store and transport from one place to another. Further it is not nutrient specific and hence not useful when a particular nutrient is required by the plant or the soil is deficient in particular nutrient. Different types of manures are:

Compost: It is prepared by decomposition of plant waste, animal wastes and urins of animals. They are collected in a pit and allowed to decompose overa long period of time, by the microorganisms, in the presence of oxygen. It takes about three to four month to prepare the compost.

Green Manure: The green manure is prepared by growing the crop for six to eight week and then mulching it into the field by ploughing and mixing it with the soil. These crops are left buried into the field for about one to two month, during which it completely get decomposed into the soil and the nutrient content of the soil is increased.

Farm Yard Manure: It is obtained by decomposing the mixture of animal waste and urins along with litter, and left over organic matters, such as roughage or fodders. These waste materials are collected daily from the cattle shed. It is then and stored into the pit and are allowed to decompose by the microorganisms such as bacteria and fungus. The main components of FYM is nitrogen, phophorous, and potassium.

           Fertilizers

Fertilizers are also the source of plant nutrients, which are manufactured commercially from the chemicals. These fertilizers supply nitrogen, phophrous and potassium. Depending on the contents, they are divided into four groups, such as nitrogenous fertilizer, phosphatic fertilizers, potassic fertilizers and complex fertilizers.

Nitrogenous fertilizers supply macronutrient such as nitrogen. The common nitrogenous fertilizer are Urea

                                                                                \[(CO{{(N{{H}_{2}})}_{2}}),\]

 Ammonium nitrate

                                                                                  \[(N{{H}_{4}}N{{O}_{3}})\]

, Sodium nitrate

                                                                                         \[(NaN{{O}_{3}}),\]

 etc.

Phosphatic fertilizers are the main sources of phosphorous. The common phosphatic fertilizers are Superphosphate-1, Triple superphosphate and dicalcium phosphate, etc.

Potassic fertilizers are the main sources of potassium. The common potassic fertilizers are potassium chloride, potassium sulphate and potassium nitrate. Complex fertilizers are those which contains atleast two or more nutrients.

The common complex fertilizers are urea ammonium phosphate and ammonium phosphate.

            Irrigation

Water is one of the important requirement for crop production. To have good harvest we should have proper arrangement of water (known as irrigation) for the agriculture. It is not necessary that there will be proper rainfall at the time of farming, in such case we should have proper arrangement of water supply for the agriculture. There are different system of irrigation that are in practice.

These are:

Canal System: Canals are dug connecting the main river system to the reservoir or the field and water is supplied through these canal to the field at the time of requirement.

Tank System: Tanks are the small reservoirs, which are built to store the runoff of smaller catchment areas. These are built at higher elevation so that the water can be supplied to the low laying areas without much difficulties.

Well System: There are mainly two types of well that is dug wells and tube wells. In dug well the water is collected from bearing strata and in tube well water is collected from deep strata. Water can be lifted from these wells using motor pumps

River Lift System: In this system water is directly collected from river as the canal system or the other reservoir system is insufficient to meet the requirement of water for irrigation. This methods is useful in bottom flat lands of the valleys and are used for growing crops such as rice, wheat, etc.

         Cropping Patterns

The different cropping patterns can be followed to increase the productivity of the crops. The different cropping patterns are Mixed cropping. Inter cropping, and Crop rotation.

• Mixed Cropping: In this technique two or more crops are grown simultaneously on the same piece of land. The mixed cropping minimize the risk of crop failure due to abnormal weather conditions. Some of the major crop combinations are wheat and cheek pea, maize and urad bean, groundnut and sunflower, cotton and moong bean, etc. While selecting the crop for mixed cropping we have to take care of the following things, such as, product and waste material of one crop stimulates the growth of the other crop, they should not have same nutrient requirement so that they compete for the nutrients, light and water. One should be of long duration and other should be of short duration of maturity. One should be tall and other should be dwarf, one should be deep rooted and other should be shallow rooted, and one should have less nutrient and water requirement than the other.

The main advantage of this pattern is, that the risk of total crop failure due to monsoon failure is minimum. One can harvest more than one variety of crop in the same time and in the same piece of land. Further, fertility of the soil is maintained and chances of pest infection is minimum.

• Intercropping: In this method two or more crop is grown in the same piece of land in a definite pattern of rows and columns. The pattern may be 1:2, 1:1, or 1:3. This cropping pattern make use of better natural resources such as sunlight, water and nutrients, it also leads to production of large variety of crops in a single time and also maintains the balance of soil nutrients.
• Crop Rotation: In this method different crops are grown in a same piece of land, in a preplanned manners. The main advantage of crop rotation is that it controls the need of fertilizers, maintains the fertility of the soil and also balance the nutrients in the soil. Several crops can be grown in succession with only one soil preparation

         Crop Protection Management

Crops are infected by large number of weeds, insect pests and diseases. If these are not controlled at right time, it can lead to large scale destruction of crops. The chemical used to kill the pests are known as pesticides. These pesticides includes insecticides, weedicides, and fungicides.

Weeds are the unwanted plants which grow along with the crops and hinder the growth of the crops. The common weeds are xanthium, parthenium. These weeds take away the nutrients from the soil and compete for the light and water with the crop plants. Some of the common methods to control the weeds are uprooting, hand picking, burning, and flooding. This can also be done with the help of using chemicals such as 2, 4- dicholorophenoxyacetic acid, atrazine, etc.

Some of the common disease of the crops are:  

            Storage of Grains

One of the big problem our country is facing today is the lack of proper storage facility of the grains, which our farmers produce after so much hard work. Large amount of food grains are wasted due to the lack of proper storage facilities. The factors which are responsible for such losses are biotic and abiotic factors.

The biotic factors includes rats, mites, rodents, insects, fungi, and bacteria. On the other hand abiotic factors are inappropriate moisture, temperature, storage place, proper ventilation, poor germinability etc.

The preventive measures, which can be taken for storage of grains are; the grains should be properly dried and cleaned before cleaning, the gowdon should be properly cleaned and dried before storing the grains. There should be proper arrangement for aeration, temperature control, and protection from rodents

and insects. Fumigation i.e. chemical pesticides should be sprayed to kill the germs and insects to protect the grains.

         Which one of the following nutrients do we get from cereals?

(a) Vitamins

(b) Protein

(c) Carbohydrates

(d) Minerals

(e) None of these

Answer: (c)

       The rust disease in wheat is caused by which one of the following microorganism?

(a) Puccinia

(b) Wachuria

(c) Pyricularis

(d) Smut

(e) None of these

Answer: (a)

        The unwanted plants which grow along with the crop plant and hindered its growth is called:

(a) Herbs

(b) Xanthum

(c) Shrubs

(d) Weeds

(e) None of these

Answer: (d)