Castor (Ricinus communis L.) is a major industrial oilseed crop that grows well in rainfed and limited-irrigated environments. Castor is mostly grown in Tamil Nadu as an intercrop, mixed crop for long-term income in both rainfed and irrigated systems. As a result, the current study was conducted in Tiruchirappalli district, Tamil Nadu, to examine farmers' attitudes toward the castor intercropping system and farmers' income in a rainfed ecosystem. A purposeful random sampling strategy was used to choose a sample of 100 castor growers (farmers who farmed castor as a major crop). The samples were then investigated using a well-structured interview schedule that included closed and open-ended type questions while keeping the study's aims in mind. For administrative reasons, the entire study was limited to the Tamil Nadu district of Tiruchirappalli. According to the findings, adopting vegetables as an intercrop in castor production is a graded process in which a farmer must go through many stages such as awareness, interest, evaluation, training, and adoption. Castor growers used an intercropping strategy with groundnut (38 percent), redgram (25 percent), and cotton (21 percent). On the other hand, only a small percentage of the responders (16%) followed through with mono-cropping of castor with a cropping intensity of 100%. The castor yield was higher in the mono-cropping system (22.7 q/ha) than in the inter-cropping system (13.6 q/ha), according to the statistics. Cotton, groundnut, and redgram were the highest yielding inter-crops, with yields of 22.2 t/ha, 19.1 t/ha, and 11.7 t/ha, respectively. Intercropping in castor produced the following promising results: 1) 90% effective use of agricultural resources during the rainy season, 2) 85% reduction in input costs, 80% increase in farm revenue and returns, and 79 percent increase in food and nutritional security. While adopting inter-cropping in castor, the study found that castor growers favoured highly market-driven inter-crops such groundnut and cotton, and that few farmers preferred redgram for household consumption as well as local market. Adopting an appropriate intercropping method is a good way to get more money per square foot of land. Growing various crops in the same field at the same time is a strategy to achieve food security with the least amount of land available.
Author(S) Details
V. Dhanushkodi
ICAR-Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Sirugamani-639 115, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India.
V. Alex Albert
ICAR-Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Sirugamani-639 115, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India.
S. Nithila
ICAR-Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Sirugamani-639 115, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India.
G. Anand
ICAR-Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Sirugamani-639 115, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India.
N. Tamilselvan
ICAR-Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Sirugamani-639 115, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India.
View Book:- https://stm.bookpi.org/CTAS-V5/article/view/5260
