Mango based agroforestry systems in degraded foothills of North-western Himalayan region.
Saroj P. L., Samra J. S., Sharma N. K., Dadhwal K. S., Shrimali S. S., Arora Y. K.
Author Affiliation: Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute, Dehradun (U.P.) - 248 195, India.
Indian Journal of Agroforestry 1 : 121-128
Abstract : A study was conducted in Dehradun, Uttar Pradesh, India, during 1995-98, to: (1) rehabilitate degraded lands through mango-based agroforestry systems; (2) determine understorey crops that would grow well with mangoes; and (3) determine the economic viability of the system. The vegetative vigour of mango plantation was better with understorey crops as compared with sole planted mango. The effect of mango trees was apparent on the rabi season crop (toria) at the fourth year when tree canopy was ~25%. Among various understorey crops tried during the kharif season; urd [Phaseolus vulgaris], cowpea and sesame showed good response while arhar [Cajanus cajan] was affected by adverse weather conditions during the second year, though it produced maximum dry matter yield (75.97 q/ha) followed by cowpea (27.71 q/ha), urd (17.88 q/ha) and sesame (12.05 q/ha). The average grain yield of urd, arhar and sesame were 5.78, 3.56 and 2.23 q/ha, respectively. In the case of cowpea, 14.49 q/ha green pod yield was recorded. Whereas, during the rabi season, >11 q/ha dry matter and >3 q/ha grain yield of toria was recorded. Economic evaluation of the understorey components with mango under degraded land suggested that urd-toria was the best combination followed by cowpea-toria and sesame-toria and showed B : C ratios of 3.89, 2.69 and 2.50, respectively. Results indicate that mango plantations could be established successfully even on degraded lands by adopting site specific agrotechniques.