Introduction:
- Sustainable horticulture requires adoption of such cropping patterns, which ensure efficient use of available space, enhanced productivity and profitability. This is particularly more important for tree fruit crops, which are planted at wider spacing in the field and take longer times to come into bearing.
- Besides, vacant space between rows and trees remain unutilized during the initial years of orchard life, which leads to wastage of resources including land, water, labour etc.
- Therefore, adoption of suitable cropping system developed for a particular agro-climatic system to derive additional income and which provides opportunities for better utilization of available land, water and labour resources is required.
Cropping systems:
- Cropping patterns and its management to derive benefits from a given resource base under specific environmental condition.
Cropping system= Cropping pattern + Management
- It changes when place and environment are changed.
- It means, cropping system is location specific.
- Cropping system may also be defined as “a pattern of growing a compatible crop or its combination followed on a particular farm year after year in order to get maximum utilization of land in time and space, in addition to the practices and technologies with which the crops are produced”.
Advantages:
1. Better land use efficiency.
2. It ensures more efficient input utilization and generates more employments.
3. Greater interception and harvest of solar energy.
4. Decreased production cost.
5. Sustainable production and farm income.
Criteria/Considerations:
1. Soil enriching crops such as leguminous/high-biomass yielding, should be preferred.
2. Compatibility of crops in respects of light, nutrients, water, space etc. needs to be considered.
3. Optimum utilization of farm resources.
4. Maintaining fertility and productivity of soil.
5. Diverse range of production distributed on time scale.
6. High cash value and short duration crops like vegetables, fillers should be considered on priority.
Cropping Scheme:
- The plan for raising crops on individual plot of a farm should be formulated with the objective of getting the maximum returns from each crop without impairing the soil fertility.
Types of cropping systems in horticultural crops:
Mono-species orchards:
- Mono-species also referred as monoculture.
- In this, fruit trees of a single species are planted in the field.
- This system is common in modern horticulture, where trees are planted densely, using dwarf or semi-dwarf trees with modified canopy to ensure better light interception and distribution and ease of mechanization.
Advantages:
- Such orchards give early cropping, higher yield and productivity of better quality fruits.
- Orchards have lesser labour requirements.
- It gives increased returns.
Disadvantages:
- In the event of crop failure due to unfavourable climatic conditions or adversities in a particular year, growers encounter heavy losses (see unfruitfulness below).
- This system may not be suitable for small growers with marginal holding, who can afford to meet high initial cost of inputs and technologies involved.
- Mono-crop in small and marginal holding, whether with standard or close planting will neither provide sufficient employment to the family members nor give sufficient income to sustain the dependent family members.
- No efficient utilization of land and soil nutrients.
Unfruitfulness:
- Fruit growers facing situation of poor or no fruiting of trees in their orchards, though trees are mature enough to bear sizable crop.
- The studies indicate that there are various external or internal factors associated with this type of situation in the orchard.
External factors of unfruitfulness:
- Amongst the external factors, environmental conditions prevailing just before, during or at the blossoming or fruit set, may play dominant role in making the plants fruitful or unfruitful.
Internal factors of unfruitfulness:
- The internal factors of the plant itself i.e., hereditary characters, may be equally responsible for making the tree fruitful or unfruitful.
- Considering both the above mentioned factors, the orchardist shall have to manipulate his orchard management practices in such a manner that he will able to overcome them in order to make his plant fruitful.
What are C/N ratio and its relationship with fruitfulness?
- The balance between carbohydrate and nitrogen in plant is known as C/N ratio.
Figure 7.1. Use of spreader for enhancing flowering Plate 7.1. Double “C” method of ringing of tree trunk in pear for early flowering
- The fruit bud formation, setting of fruit, and its development mainly depends on C/N ratio in the branches of the trees at certain critical stages of seasons.
- Plants with adequate nitrogen and high carbohydrate accumulation are found to make moderate growth and produce satisfactory crop.
- Plant with excess of nitrogen and moderate carbohydrates are found to grow vegetatively at the expense of fruit production.
- The accumulation of carbohydrates in the branches may be either due to their manufacture or due to less rapid utilization. In plants, which are weak in their growth, carbohydrates may be made to accumulate by supplying them more nutrients and water.
- Certain horticultural practices like branch bending (Fig. 7.1), ringing (Plate 7.1), scoring etc. increase C/N ratio in branches.
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