Effect of agronomical practices on yield and quality of wheat under different cropping systems in Haryana

The survey was conducted in Haryana state during rabi season of 2005-06 on 972 farmers in 54 villages of 16 districts with respective cropping system i. e. pearl millet-wheat, cotton-wheat and rice-wheat. The 18 farmers from each village were selected randomly covering small (<2.0 ha), medium (2-4 ha) and large (>4.0 ha) group of land holders. Only those farmers were selected, who had grown PBW 343 variety of wheat. The sample sizes for pearl millet-wheat, cotton-wheat and rice-wheat of all three small, medium and large farm size groups were 90, 108 and 126, respectively. Yield reported in rice-wheat system was higher than cotton-wheat and pearl millet-wheat system. Maximum yield was observed with the use of more than five bags urea/ha. Numbers of irrigations above 4 and seed rate above 100 kg/ha were also reported to increase in yield. Protein content of wheat in pearl millet-wheat system was the highest. Protein content in late sown wheat in pearl millet-wheat system was higher than cotton-wheat and rice-wheat systems. Seed rate of 100 kg/ha and nitrogen dose of five bags of urea/ ha gave significantly higher protein content. Quantitative production of wheat in ricewheat and cotton-wheat cropping systems was higher than pearl millet-wheat system but quality in terms of protein content was significantly superior to both the rice-wheat and cotton-wheat systems. Hence, export market should be developed in quality grain producing zone i. e. in pearl millet-wheat growing areas, where lower percentage of farmers use higher nitrogen doses and cultivation practices were numerically better than other cropping systems.