J. Agronomy & Crop Science 170, 158—162 (1993)© 1993 Paul Parey Scientific Publishers, Berlin and HamburgISSN 0931-2250

Regional Agricultural Research Station, Indira Gandhi Agricultural University,Bilaspur, Madhya Pradesh, India

Integrated Nitrogen Management with Green Manuresin Rice-Chickpea Cropping System

A. L. RATHORE, S. L . PATEL and G. P. PALI

Authors' addresses: Dr. A. L. RATHORE, Department of Land and Water Management, Indira GandhiAgricultural University, Raipur, (M.P.); Dr. S. L. PATEL, Regional Agricultural Research Station, Raigarh.(M.P.), and Dr. G. P. PALl, College of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry, Aniora, Durg (M.P.), India.

mth 3 tables

Received March 17, 1992; accepted July 14, 1992

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during wet and dry seasons of 19S7—88 and 1988—89 to evaluate theperformance of green manures with and without fertilizer nitrogen in lowland rice and their residual effect onsucceeding crop of chickpea grown under rice-chickpea cropping system. Incorporation of Ipomeu carnea(green leaves), Cassia tora and Parthenium hysterophorus (green young plants) ca. 5 t/ha fresh weightsignificantly improved yield and yield components namely panicles per hill, panicle length, grams per panicleand test weight of transplanted rice. The results showed that at least 20 kg/ha fertilizer nitrogen applied to ricecould be replaced by incorporation of 5 t/ha fresh weight green manure. Supplementation of 60 kg N/hathrough urea to the green manures treated plots proved to be the best in respect of grain yield and wascomparable to the yield obtained under 80 kg N/ha as urea alone. Plant N-uptake followed the similar patternof rice grain yield. Residual fertility in terms of available nitrogen increased under the green manuretreatments, whereas urea nitrogen alone made no impact on fertility build-up. Green manures showedsignificantly higher residual response than fertilizer N alone to seed yield and N uptake of chickpea.

Key words: Rice, chickpea, Ipomea carnea. Cassia tora, Parthenium hysterophorus, green manure, nitrogen,residual effect.

Introduction

The addition of chemical fertilizer does notdiminish the utility of organic sources (CHANG

1975), which are known to maintain soil ferrili-t}' for better rice production (SHARMA andMiTTRA 1991). The high cost of fertilizers andthe low purchasing power of peasants alsorestrict the use of costly fertilizer inputs. Thebenefits of green manuring of Sesbania andAzolla for rice production have been reportedby many workers (NAGARAJAII and AMARASIRI

1977, PONNAMPERUMA 1984, SiNGH 1984).

There i.s however, lack of knowledge for utili-zation of other organic sources like Ipomea

carnea. Cassia tora and Parthenium hys-terophorus, which have been found as weeds innon-culturable as well as culturable land ofmany parts of India and the world. Utilizationof such weeds may partially meet the nutrientsrequirement, particularly nitrogen after de-composition vis-a-vis arresting the nutrientlosses under submerged conditions of trans-planted rice. Such information would also beuseful for developing suitable managementpractices with efficient use of organic and inor-ganic sources of nitrogen in rice cultivation.The present study was therefore, undertakento find out the possibilities of using these

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Integrated Nitrogen Management with Green Manures in Rice-Chickpea Cropping System 139

weeds as green manure to meet at least a part ofthe nitrogen requirement in a rice-chickpeacropping system.

Materials and Methods

The experiment was carried out on farmers'field fortwo consecutive years (1987—88 and 198S—89) withrice variety IR 36 in wet season and chickpea varietyJG-72 in winter season. The soil was loam pH 7.0,organic carbon 0.34 %, available N 232 kg/ha, avail-able P 8.2 kg/ha and available K 41S kg/ha. Thetreatments comprised of three green manures {Par-thenium hysterophorus. Cassia tora and Ipomeacarnea) and three nitrogen levels (0, 40 and 60 kg/ha)during first year and four nitrogen levels (0, 40, 60and 80 kg N/ha) during second year in randomizedblock design. In both the years, the treatments werereplicated four times. Green leaves of Ipomea andgreen plants (30—35 days old) of Parthenutm andCassia were incorporated in soil at the rate of 5tonnes/ha on fresh weight basis. On an averageIpomea leaves (green) and green plants of Cassia andParthenium contained 0.74, 0.61 and 0.82 % nitro-gen on fresh weight basis respectively. The organicmaterials were incorporated on 13th July duringboth the years and 10 days after incorporation indi-vidual plots were prepared. A common basal dress-ing of 50 kg P2OS as super phosphate and 30 kgKiO/ha as muriate of potash was applied at trans-planting. Two to three seedlings, 26 days old, perhill were transplanted in last week of July at aspacing of 20 cm x 10 cm. Nitrogen was applied inthree splits i.e. 30 % at transplanting, 40 % at max-imum tillering and 30 % at panicle initiation stages.

The residual effect of the treatments imposed onnee durmg wet season was studied on succeedingcrop chickpea during winter season without disturb-ing the layout. Chickpea was sown without fertilizerat a row spacing of 30 cm apart using 80 kg seed/ha.All other recommended agronomic practices likeweeding, plant protection measures, irrigation, har-vesting and threshing were followed. The plant sam-ples of rice and chickpea were collected at harvestfrom each plot and analyzed for nitrogen followingthe micro Kjeldahl method. In 1988—89 after chick-pea the soil samples (0—13 cm depth of soil) weretaken from each plot and analyzed for availablenitrogen.

Results and Discussion

Incorporation of Partbenium, Cassia andIpomea \n soil significantly increased grainyield of rice as compared to unfertilized con-trol (Table 1). The increase in rice yield up to24 % under the green manures can be ex-plained by more release of nitrogen from thesesources for plant uptake, which is evidencedfrom S to 9 kg/ha more plant uptake underthese sources than that from control (Table 1).The organic sources were rich in nitrogen con-tent (0.82 to 0.61 % N on fresh weight basis)and succulent in nature (Contained 63 to 7*^ %water), which may help in nitrogen minerahza-tion and their synchronization with plant up-take pattern. The benefits of Ipomea greenleaves incorporation at 3 t/ha on rice yield has

Table 1. Effect of green manures with and without N-fertilizer on grain yield and nitrogen uptake by rice

Treatment Grain yield (kg/ha) Total N-uptake (kg/ha)

1987—88 19S8—89 1987—88 1988—89

Unfertilized controlCassiaIpomeaPartheniumCassia -h 40 kg N/haIpomea -1- 40 kg N/haParthenium + 40 kg N/haCassia + 60 kg N/haIpomea -1- 60 kg N/haParthenium + 60 kg N/ha40 kg N/ha60 kg N/ha80 kg N/ha

300036303690377042804310433045404560459038304260—

3160373037903880433044104470467047904890395043404750

31.7040.2041.1042.0048.5051.5051.8058.4059.3060.4042.6030.70

34.7043.2044.2045.3055.8657.635S.4066.4068.2669.1046.1058.0065.10

LSD (P = 0.05) 270 330 3.33 3.05

160 RATHORE, PATEL and PALI

Table 2. Yield components

Treatment

ControlCassiaIpomeaPartheniumCassia + 40 kg N/haIpomea + 40 kg N/haParthenium 4- 40 kg N/haCassia + 60 kg N/haIpomea + 60 kg N/haParthenium + 60 kg N/ha40 kg N/ha60 kg N/ha80 kg N/ha

LSD (P = 0.05)

of rice as influenced

Paniclesper

1987

5.4

6.56.6

6.98.18.0

8.1

8.48.78.57.0

7.9—

0.8

hill1988

5.7

6.9

7.3

7.7

8.08.7

8.89.0

9.39.7

7.7

8.9

9.8

0.9

by green manuring

Paniclelength, cm

1987

17.619.319.219.420.520.420.721.020.921.419.620.3—

1.4

198S

17.719.619.920.120.720.820.921.321.621.720.320.621.8

1.2

and nitrogen levels

Grains perpanicle

1987

66.975.574.777.478.185.986.691.390.891.478.184.8—

5.6

1988

54.568.769.870.771.575.976.778.779.479.971.576.979.2

3.4

1000weig

1987

21.423.023.023.323.524.124.224.524.724.923.523.8—

1.1

grain;ht, g

1988

22.423.123.423.423.624.224.224.224.724.923.624.124.6

1.1

also been suggested by KONDAP et al. (1981),R.̂ ju et al. (1987) and NARSA REDDY et al.(1987).

Application of 40, 60 and 80 kg N/ha as ureaenhanced grain yield by 26, 40 and 50 % re-spectively with significant superiority over un-fertilized control. The green manure sup-plemented with urea ca. 40 and 60 kg/ha gave41 and 52 % higher yield of rice than that from

control (Table 1). It was also found that sup-plementation of 60 kg N/ha as urea to the greenmanures treated plots found to be the best inrespect of grain yield and was comparable tothe yield obtained under 80 kg N/ha as ureaalone. The yield components viz. panicles perhill and grains per panicle followed the patternof grain yield. Panicle length and test weightunder all the three green manures + 40 kg N/

Table 3. Residual effect of green manures with and without N-fertilizer on grain yield and nitrogen uptake bychickpea and soil available nitrogen

Treatment

ControlCassiaIpomeaPartheniumCassia + 40 kg N/haIpomea + 40 kg N/haParthenium + 40 kg N/haCassia -1- 60 kg N/haIpomea + 60 kg N/haParthenium + 60 kg N/ha40 kg N/ha60 kg N/ha80 kg N/ha

LSD (P = 0.05)

Grain yield(kg/ha)

1987—88

510530

570580

630660

680

680

690695

520

540—

NS

1988—89

630

750

760820

830860

880

850

870

890

690

710

720

110

Total N-uptake(kg/ha)

1987—88

26.9028.1030.2031.1033.2034.9035.6036.0036.7037.1027.2028.10

—

5.60

1988—89

38.8045.6046.5050.0050.6051.7752.8051.8053.0045.0041.4044.1050.20

6.70

Soil test after chickpeaavailable nitrogen

(kg/ha)

219

233

235

236

243

243244

245247

248

228

230233

—

Integrated Nitrogen Management with Green Manures in Rice-Chickpea Cropping System 161

ha through urea and 60 kg N/ha appliedthrough fertilizer were comparable and weresignificantly higher than control where no ni-trogen was added. JHA et al. (1980), MORRIS etal. (1986) and GHAKRABER-H' et al. (1988) re-ported that incorporation of green manure in-creased rice yield and supplementation of N-fertilizer caused further improvement in theyield.

The green manures with and without N-fertilizer recorded significantly higher plant Nuptake than that obtained under control(Table 1). Uptake of N, under Ipomea orParthenium each supplemented with 60 kg N/ha through fertilizer was significantly higherthan under SO kg N/ha through urea alone. Thepositive correlation between grain yield andcrop N-uptake (r = 0.93 and 0.98) substanti-ates the fact that crop N-uptake increased withincreased grain yield of rice. The higher N-uptake could enable the rice plant to producemore number of yield components (viz. pani-cles per hill and grains per panicle) and finallyhigher grain yield.

The various treatments of green manures aswell as fertilizer levels did not exhibit residualeffect on succeeding chickpea crop during1987—88 (Table 3). However, in 1988—S9 thecumulative effect of green manures with andwithout N fertilizer gave significantly moregrain yield as compared to control. Higheruptake of 4 to 8 kg N/ha under the greenmanure treated plots than that from unfer-tilized control explained the residual effect ofthe green manures on chickpea. SHARMA andMiTTRA (1988) and LADHA et al. (1989) alsoreported the residual effect of green manuresapplied to preceding rice on grain yields ofsucceeding chickpea and wheat crops.

Zusammenfassung

Integriertes Stickstoffmanagementmit Griindiingung in Reis-Kichererbsen-Mischanbau

Es wurde ein Feldexperiment wahrend derFeucht- und Trockensaison in den Jahren 1987/88 und 1988/89 durchgefiihrt, um die Wirkungvon Grundungung mit und ohne Stickstoff-diinger in Feuchtreis sowie deren Nachwir-kungen auf den folgenden Anbau von Kicher-erbsen in Reis-Kichererbsen-Mischanbau zu

untersuchen. Die Einarbeitung von Ipomeacarnea (griine Blatter), Cassia tora und Partbe-nium bysteropborus (griine, junge Pflanzen)mit 3 t/ha Frischgewicht erhohte signifikantden Ertrag und Ertragskomponenten wie Ris-pen je Horst, Rispenlange, Korner je Rispeund Korngewicht von gepflanztem Reis. DieErgebnisse zeigen, da£ mindestens 20 kg/ha anDungerstickstoff, der zu Reis angewendetwird, durch die Aufnahme von 3 t/ha Frischge-wicht Grundungung ersetzt werden kann. Ei-ne Erganzungsdungung von 60 kg N/ha iiberHarnstoff zu den mit Grundungung behandel-ten Parzellen erwies sich am gunstigsten lmHinblick auf den Kornertrag und war ver-gleichbar zu dem Ertrag, der mit 80 kg N/hamit alleiniger Diingung mit Harnstoff erzieltwerden konnte. Die N-Aufnahme der Pflan-zen entsprach dem Reiskornertrag. Verblei-bende Fruchtbarkeit in Form verfiigbarenStickstoffs war unter der Wirkung von Griin-diingungsbehandlungen erhoht, wahrend diealleinige Verwendung von Harnstoffstickstoffkeine Fruchtbarkeit aufbaute. Grundungungzeigte signifikant hohere Nachwirkungen alsDiingungs-N nur im Hinblick auf den Samen-ertrag und N-Aufnahme von Kichcrcrbsen.

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