Additive effect of rice straw mulching and legume residue incorporation on growth and productivity of rabi maize and groundnut in intensified rice-based cropping systems

A long-term field experiment was conducted at Institutional research farm, ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack, Odisha since 2012-13. The experiment was conducted in split plot design involving two cropping systems i.e., rice-maize-cowpea (R-M-C) and rice-groundnut-cowpea (R-G-C) as main plots and five nutrient management options i.e., control-control-control (C-C-C), RDF-RDF-RDF (R-R-R), RI+RDF75-RDF-RDF (RI+R75-R-R), RI+RDF75-SM + RDF-RDF (RI+R75-SM+R-R) and RI+RDF75-SM+RDF-RDF50 (RI+R75-SM+R-R50) in sub-plots, where R is RDF for respective crop, RI is the cowpea residue incorporation prior to rice transplanting and SM is the rice straw mulching in rabi season crops i.e., maize and groundnut. The present study was a part of this long-term experiment and the data presented here is the pooled data obtained during 2017-18 and 2018-19. Result revealed that RI+R75-SM+R-R in maize being at par with RI+R75-SM+R-R50 improved the leaf area index, dry matter accumulation and plant height of maize and groundnut throughout the crop period. RI+R75-SM+R-R50 also recorded 22.37 and 16.36% higher seed and stover yield of maize and 14.51 and 10% higher pod and stover yield in groundnut respectively than R-R-R.