.Use of spring-pulses to improve soil health
by Muhammad Zubair Anwar & Dr. Umar Farooq
Published in "The News" Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi on October 10, 2005
Agriculture is the backbone of Pakistan’s economy and contributes substantially to the country’s exports. About sixty seven per cent of the total population is living in rural areas and all of them are dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. But due to high yielding crop varieties and multiple cropping, soil fertility is depleting rapidly. The soils are now gradually becoming deficient in essential nutrients and these have raised serious concerns for the sustainability of agricultural system.
Soil fertility is the most serious factor, which is limiting productivity on a sustained basis. Due to low organic matter in the soil and the inherent nutrient level, the plant nutrient supply capacity is poor in large areas of the country. In late 1950s, the use of nitrogen was initiated as a fertiliser nutrient whereas the application of phosphorus began in late 1960s. In addition, the trend in growing use of mineral fertilisers has also been remarkable in recent history. Every year, the annual expenditure on the use of mineral fertilisers is increasing.
The rice and wheat cropping system in the country is highly exhaustive in nature and the continuous practice of this has resulted in low inherent of soil fertility along with the inside deficiencies of macro and micro nutrients. The said system is extensively practised and per acre yield of rice and wheat is far below the potential yield. Low yield phenomenon is constrained by mainly low soil nitrogen. This situation is quite serious in the traditional rice belt area where yield of the wheat crop is very low as compared to the adjacent non-rice area. Therefore, the major concern now is how to stop the declining trend in the productivity of rice and wheat cropping system.
The long term sustainability of rice and wheat cropping system mainly depends on the use of balanced nutrients in the soil. But high prices, low efficiency and unavailability of chemical fertilisers are factors limiting their application. However, legumes offer economically attractive alternative and are sound means for reducing external inputs for improving the quality of soil health and cereal crop yields.
Soil experts opine that the prospect of inclusion of legume cultivation in the rice and wheat system is possible by introducing short duration legumes such as mung bean and mash bean. The scientists, after considering technical and nutritional importance of pulses, have evolved short duration varieties of mung and mash specifically for the said system. Moreover, the available short duration varieties are disease resistant and high yielding.
Traditionally, summer and winter legumes are cultivated both in irrigated and rained areas. In terms of area and production, Punjab is a major pulse-growing province, followed by Sindh and NWFP. Overall, Punjab is producing about 72 per cent of the total pulse production.
Presently, our national demand of the pulses is about one million thousand tones, whereas we are producing only 0.600 million thousand tones. With the existing gap of about 0.400 million tones, the demand for pulses is further increasing. Unfortunately, pulses are still treated as minor crops. This negligence has imposed serious threats to the productivity of rice -wheat system. The area of gram, lentil, mash has declined 76.3, 24.7 and 18.4 percent respectively in the rice producing districts of Punjab. Only mung pulse has shown little increase in its area. This situation has created severe problems of soil fertility and protein deficiency in the rural population.
Keeping in view the importance of pulses, both social and biological scientists have joined hands and evaluated their reintroduction in the rice producing districts. In this regard socio economic and technical parameters were established, to see their practical viability. The factors like turn around time, irrigation availability, profitability of the system and trade off option were considered important to reintroduce pulses in the region. Also, a multidisciplinary team of scientists conducted a survey in order to analyse the parameters and get the farmers’ response. The results of the study showed that traditionally, pulses were cultivated in the rice producing districts of Punjab, but with the availability of canal and tubewell water, pulse cultivation was discontinued in the area. At present, few farmers, i.e only 11.1 per cent, were found as pulses growers, while 75.2 per cent and 13.7 per cent respondents didn’t support pulse growing. The turn around time is an important parameter to see the possibility of spring pulses cultivation. Data shows that usually farmers complete wheat harvesting from second to last week of April. Among rice varieties, super basmati is predominantly grown in the area. After harvesting of wheat and transplanting of super rice, land remains fallow for 60- 65 days. So this period can easily be utilised for the cultivation of an additional crop. During the survey period, the farmers also pointed out this possibility and they have shown willingness about the cultivation of short duration spring pulses.
One source for irrigation and land distribution shows that almost every farmer has irrigated land and they can easily allocate some fields for spring pulses. The majority of farmers (56.9 per cent) hold light mera-loam soils and it is the most suitable soil for pulse cultivation. The profitability analysis shows that cultivation of spring pulses in the rice-wheat system is more profitable as compared to other common rotations in the area. The farmers can grow pulses by doing trade-off between different crops but they need to be encouraged to allocate some area for pulse cultivation. For instance, if one farmer is planting 8 acres of wheat and then again is planting 8 acres of rice, he should be motivated to spare 2 or 3 acres for pulses and the rest 5 or 6 acres for rice crop. Through this trade-off, farmers can get two kinds of benefits; one is that the soil will improve and the other is the financial benefit he will get from this additional crop.
Briefly, the parameters established to explore the possibility of spring pulses have shown positive signs. The profitability, turn around time, irrigation availability and improvement in soil health are the factors which can motivate the farming community to go for this option. For the induction of farmers and dissemination in the existing cropping system, integrated efforts by the scientists are required. Through their efforts, this venture can be made successful even in a short period. There should be demonstration plots to practically demonstrate the feasibility of spring pulses in the region. The farming community also suggests the timely provision of short duration seed. For this purpose, involvement of private seed companies would be beneficial and helpful.
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