Yield Advantages of New Technologies of Chickpea in Rice-Fallow of Indo-Gangetic Plains Zone of West Bengal

Chickpea is the important winter legume crop among all the pulse crops in India. Diversification and intensification of the rice-fallow system by using chickpea has been demonstrated at farmer’s field, resulting in adoption by farmer’s in some regions. The main driving forces behind the adoption at farm level were cost saving, timely planting and improved system productivity and profitability. In the Gangetic Alluvial Regions (GAR), farmers, encouraged by higher yields of rice and wheat dwarf varieties, intensified their cropping systems, and improved the national crop productivity. Nonetheless, some of areas especially in the eastern parts of Gangetic plains could not take advantage of improved infrastructures like electrical power, groundwater development, irrigation canals, roads and government managed procurement of farm commodities etc. Sowing a second rainfed crop after rainfed rice depends on availability of residual moisture in the soil and provisions of supplementary tube well irrigation. Deficit rainfall or lack of ground water lifting facility results in large areas remaining 'rice-fallow' during the winter season. Recent estimates suggest that 40% of kharif rice areas remain fallow in winter either due to lack of irrigation or inappropriate crop establishment methods used for raising a winter season chickpea. This includes approximately 11.65 million ha rice-fallow area in India alone in the states of West Bengal (1.72 m ha). A good combination of agronomic package and practices have been developed but the principal constraint remained the difficulty in establishing a reasonable crop stand once the surface layers of the soil had dried out. There is ample scope of chickpea as a second crop with full packages practices in Gangetic alluvial regions, chickpea favours moderate soil moisture for their growth and development which is available in this soil