Raveena, Rameshwar Kumar, Rushali and Shweta Singh
Abstract
A two-year field experiment was carried out during 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 to find out the impact of natural and organic farming techniques on the productivity and profitability of the maize-wheat based cropping system. The experiment was conducted in randomized block design, replicated thrice and comprising of thirteen treatments viz., T1- Maize + Lobia - Wheat + Gram and jeevamrit spray at 14 days interval, T2- Maize + Lobia - Wheat + Gram and jeevamrit spray at 21 days interval, T3- Maize + Lobia â Wheat + Gram and jeevamrit spray at 28 days interval, T4- Maize + Soybean - Wheat + Lentil and jeevamrut spray at 14 days interval, T5- Maize + Soybean - Wheat + Lentil and jeevamrit spray at 21 days interval, T6- Maize + Soybean - Wheat + Lentil and jeevamrit spray at 28 days interval, T7- Maize (sole) - Wheat (sole) and jeevamrit spray at 14 days interval, T8- Maize (sole) - Wheat (sole) and jeevamrit spray at 21 days interval, T9- Maize (sole) - Wheat (sole) and jeevamrit spray at 28 days interval, T10- Maize + Lobia â Wheat + Gram (Organic), T11- Maize + Soybean - Wheat + Lentil (Organic), T12- Maize sole - Wheat sole (Organic) and T13- Maize sole - Wheat sole (Absolute control). The findings indicated that adopting organic farming techniques led to significantly higher maize equivalent yield of the system and there was an increment in the system equivalent yield of T4 by 118.96%, 131.84%, 143.66% and 126.94% in the 1st year of experimentation and 112.43%, 137.98%, 157.66% and 114.42% system in the 2nd year of experimentation over sole treatments (T7, T8, T9 and T12, respectively). Similarly, organic farming practices also proved to be better in terms of various economic indicators, including gross returns, net returns and benefit cost ratio as well as profitability of the system.