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| Bed and Furrow Irrigation System |
Technology of raising row crops on beds and furrows is gaining popularity amongst the progressive farmers, mainly because the cost of crop production is considerably reduced as a result of minimum tillage, water saving etc. Bed shapers are used behind the tractors to form furrow-beds to sow row crops. Some of the advantages associated with furrow-bed-irrigation technology of crop production are: |
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savings of about 30 percent irrigation water.
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reduced chances of plant submergence due to excessive rain or over irrigation.
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lesser crusting of soil around plants and, therefore, more suitable for saline and sodic soils.
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adaptable for various crops without changing basic design/layout of farm.
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enhanced fertilizer use efficiency due to local application.
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minimizes the chances of lodging of crops.
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In view of the above benefits, Bed and Furrow planting of cotton has gained acceptance and popularity amongst farmers in the Punjab during the recent years and more than 50% cotton is planted through this technology. |
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Bed and Furrow planting of cotton has gained acceptance and popularity amongst farmers in the Punjab during the recent years and more than 50% cotton is planted through this technology
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Bed and Furrow plantation technology for wheat has been developed with the assistance of PARC, Massey University, New Zealand and CIMMYT through Rice Wheat Consortium of the Indo-Gigantic Plains and has been successfully tested in Punjab at 60 different sites on farmers’ fields. Local fabrication of the planter has been further refined by M/S Green Land Engineering, Daska and equipment has been introduced for sowing of wheat, maize, sunflower and vegetables. This technology will be helpful to enhance water productivity and reduce the cost of production of wheat. The technology has good potential for improving crop yields and water productivity. The intervention may, therefore, be disseminated amongst the farming community to cope with current water crisis. |
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Now efforts are being made to promote raising of crops on Permanent Raised Beds (PRBs).
The Permanent Raised Bed (PRB) farming system aims at creating and maintaining a seedbed with near ideal physical and fertility conditions. The objectives are to develop a root-zone for crops that absorbs rain and irrigation water more quickly, makes this water easily available to plants, and allows plant roots to freely explore the soil for water and nutrients. A raised bed farming system achieves these soil properties by retaining root material from previous crops and practicing minimal soil disturbance with only a pre-seeding blade ploughing at 25 cm depth (with zero soil inversion) and no-tillage crop establishment i.e. seeding crops with minimal cultivation only in the sown row. Both operations retain the roots of previous crops and do not expose soil organic matter or biota to the atmosphere.
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By definition, a Permanent Raised Bed implies that the bed stays in place for several seasons, in comparison with being ploughed down and reconstructed every year as with more intensive tillage systems. The permanent bed does not however imply that all bed disturbances are totally excluded. Some pre-sowing light cultivation may be necessary to renovate or reshape the beds. Bed disturbance is also necessary to destroy heliothis pupae. For cotton crop, the PRB usually involves ploughing in the beds once every 2 – 7 years, although experiments where beds have been retained for 18 years have been reported. Cotton sown on permanent raised beds has better crop growth, higher lint yield and superior fiber quality than the cotton sown after conventional tillage. |
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PARC through its Water Resources Section has done some pioneer work on promotion of PRB technology in Pakistan by using Australian manufactured machinery and providing it to the farmers’ groups with technical assistance through the funding provided by ACIAR. There is no other significant work under progress on PRB farming. The On-Farm Water Management Directorate of Punjab Agriculture Department has worked on some aspects of furrow bed irrigation systems and zero tillage systems without putting both together, and most of their work is experimental in nature. Moreover, it is conducted on government research stations, and few, if any, farmers are involved in partnership arrangements using their own land.
Permanent Raised Bed farming has been proved successful wherever it has been appropriately adopted. In several states in Australia it has been used to drain excess water from the root-zone of waterlogged crops, substantially increasing the productivity and profitability of such crops, and in Western Australia it has also been used to reclaim waterlogged and mildly salt affected land. In Pakistan, the system has been used by the WRRI, NARC/PARC in demonstrative research plots at farmers’ fields in Mardan District on waterlogged, salt-affected and generally poorly productive soils. Results of the experiences have shown that on an average the PRB saves around 25 mm of water per irrigation for maize crop and 30 mm of irrigation water for wheat crop. Similar amount of irrigation water saving is anticipated for cotton crop as well. Economic analysis conducted for the Mardan project site show that Maize grown on PRB ensured 54% greater net benefit compared to basins. Similarly, the net benefit generated by Wheat crop on PRB was 35% higher. The Benefit-Cost Ratio for Maize crop on PRB was 2.43 against 1.88 on basins and for wheat crop it stood 23% higher than the basins. These economic benefits shown by the PRB system are mainly due to the higher crop yields and lower expenditures on crop inputs.
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