Intercropping and Weed Control in Pearlmillet

Mixed/inter/relay cropping is a common practice in the low level equilibrium farmers of semi-arid and arid tropics, whose primary concern is to insulate his investment on labour, and meagre capital against adversities of nature in order to sustain his living. The main consideration of mixing crops together is to reduce the risk of failure. The basic concept of intercropping systems involving growing together two or more crops with the assumptions that two crops could exploit the environment better than one and ultimately producing higher yields, the reason being that the component crops differ in resources use and if growing together they complement each other, and make better overall use of resources. The grower, thus, has what might be called "biological insurance". Pearl millet is the main kharif (monsoon) crop grown under rainfed conditions. Intercropping is common practice in pearl millet in rainfed conditions. Hence, it is worthwhile to find out best combination of pearl millet intercropped with short duration grain legumes like green gram and black gram. Weed problem is one of the major barriers responsible for low productivity of pearl millet.