INTRODUCTION. food industry wastes. However, since organic manures can t meet the total. and organic resources seems to be a potential alternative.

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1 Chapter I INTRODUCTION A major priority in designing suitable agricultural system is the management of soil organic matter and the rational use of agricultural inputs such as animal manures, crop residues, green manures, sewage sludge and food industry wastes. However, since organic manures can t meet the total nutrient needs of modern agriculture, integrated use of nutrients from fertilizers and organic resources seems to be a potential alternative. Garden pea (Pisum sativum L.) belongs to family Leguminosae, and is one of the important cool season vegetable crop grown all over the world. Green peas contain a high percentage of digestible sugars, minerals, vitamin A, B and C and essential amino acids. Being a leguminous crop, it enriches the soil by fixing atmospheric nitrogen in the soil and also provides an effective cover to the land and thus restricts soil erosion. In India, pea is cultivated over an area of about 282 thousand hectares with a production of 2,293 thousand metric tonnes, (Anonymous, 2007). In Himachal Pradesh, it is cultivated over an area of about 16,348 hectares with an annual production of 1,77,036 metric tonnes (Anonymous, 2006). In Himachal Pradesh, pea is a leading off-season vegetable and produced all the year round, because the agro-climatic conditions are ideally suited for its cultivation as an off-season vegetable crop during summer in high hills. The consumers have a special preference for hill grown peas because of its

2 2 characteristic flavour, sweetness and freshness. The green pods from hilly areas are available at a time (June- September) when these can t be grown in the plains due to high temperature as a result these are sold at a higher premium bringing lucrative returns to the growers. Oil seeds occupy an important place in our agricultural economy. Brassica group is third most important comprising oil seed crops of the world following soybean and palm, second of India following groundnut and first of Himachal Pradesh (Anonymous, 1998). Rapeseed and mustard belong to genus Brassica of family cruciferae. Rapeseed-mustard group of crops comprises three subspecies of Brassica campestries viz. var. Toria, yellow sarson and var. brown sarson. Seeds are known by different names in different places e.g. sarson, rai or raya, toria or lahi. While sarson and toria (lahi) are generally known as rapeseed and rai or raya or raha as mustard. In India, rapeseed is cultivated over an area of about 6,599 thousand hectares with a production of 7,097 thousand metric tonnes (Anonymous, 2007). In Himachal Pradesh rapeseed and mustard are cultivated over an area of 9.3 thousand hectares with a production of 4.37 thousand metric tonnes (Anonymous, 2006). Buckwheat, the staple food crop of higher altitudes has recently gained much attention as supplementary food in plain areas as well. This possesses immense potential due to its nutritional quality, high grain yield and multipurpose usages (Aarthi et. al., 2003). Buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum Gaertn and Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) commonly known as kathu, fafra, ogla or bharesh is a herbaceous erect annual plant belonging to family Polygonaceae. Unlike cereals which are deficient in lysine, buckwheat has excellent protein

3 3 quality in terms of essential amino acid composition. It is extensively used as a leafy green vegetable by the people of the low hills. The estimated area under buckwheat is 20,000 hectares in hills of India with an annual production of 6,000 metric tonnes (Joshi and Paroda, 1991). The higher altitude regions remain covered with snow for about four or five months (November to March). Buckwheat is one amongst the few crops, fits well in double cropping sequences in such regions. The importance of farm yard manure (FYM) in increasing the yield and quality of crops on sustainable basis along with its residual effect on succeeding crops by improving the soil physical condition and soil fertility is well recognized. The use of biological nitrogen fixing systems also warrants the application of FYM as a source of carbon to microbes and nitrogen to the growing plants. FYM is one of the most commonly used bulky organic manures. FYM contains 0.5% N, 0.2% P 2 O 5 and 0.5% K 2 O. Entire amount of nutrient is not available immediately. About 30% N, 60-70% P 2 O 5 and 70% K 2 O are available to the first crop. Since it is derived from the plant and animal residue, therefore, it supplies the entire plant nutrient in easily available form to the soil and finally to the plants. It has spectacular beneficial effects on physical, chemical and biological properties of soil. It pulverizes soil and improves soil structure. It improves water holding capacity of soil and aeration in heavy soils. Similarly, it has been reported that Rhizobium in root nodules is estimated to carry out 50-70% of the world nitrogen fixation (Quispel, 1974), reducing approximately 20 million tonnes of atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia (Beringer et. al., 1980). Burton, 1984 observed that pea crops could fix kg

4 4 N/ha per year under favourable conditions. It has been estimated that between 30% to 80% of nitrogen requirement of pea can be met through biological fixation (Alikhan and Zimmer, 1989 and Bowren et. al., 1986). The rest of N must be provided from the organic sources or from fertilizer applications. The sustainability of conventional cropping system has been put to question due to heavy reliance on non-renewable resources of energy, escalating cost of fertilizers, deterioration of soil health, indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals and effect of chemical residues on food chain and soil microflora. So, the alternate focusing has been on the integrated crop management aimed at reducing the use of chemicals by integrating organics. One of the key components of integrated cropping system is integrated nutrient management system (INMS) and the basic principle of INMS is the maintenance of soil fertility, sustaining agricultural productivity and improving farmer s profitability through the judicious and efficient use of mineral fertilizers, organics manures and biological fertilizers (Singh, 2005). Plant nutrients from one single source; be it chemical fertilizers, organic manures, crop residue or bio-fertilizers, can t meet with optimum and sustained yield levels. Rather, nutrients have to be supplied from different sources (organic and inorganic) in an integrated manner and balanced amounts following appropriate management technology which is economically viable, socially acceptable and ecologically friendly (Jaggi et al., 2001). Keeping in view these facts the experiment entitled, Studies on Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) in garden pea based cropping systems under dry

5 5 temperate high hill conditions was conducted during the year 2006 and 2007 at Highland Agricultural Research and Extension, Centre of dry temperate high hill zone of Himachal Pradesh at Kukumseri (L & S) with the following objectives: 1. To find out the effect of organic and bio-fertilizer alone and in conjunction with inorganic fertilizers on growth, yield and nutrient uptake in garden pea, 2. to find out the effect of various treatments on physico-chemical properties of soil, and 3. to find out the economics of various treatments under investigation.