2025, Vol. 8, Special Issue 2

author(s)
M Mallikarjun, K Balaji Naik, E Sireesha, V Yugandhar, M Harani and E Chandrayudu

abstract
Soil moisture stress is a limiting factor in crop productivity, particularly in arid and semi-arid environments as it impacts several physiological and biochemical processes in plants. Moisture stress is a reoccurring chronic problem in Ananthapur, where a large section of the land is in the arid and semi-arid tropics. Moisture stress of varying intensities can affect two-thirds of India's agricultural land and the likelihood of it happening is more than 35%. Rainfed crops' productivity was greatly impacted by intra-seasonal dry spells brought on by irregular rainfall distribution. To increase the soil moisture availability to the agricultural crops and to increase the infiltration and percolation of rain water into the root profile, the in-situ moisture conservation techniques are recommended. Taking this into account, a Front Line Demonstrations (FLDs) were conducted for two years from 2023-24 to 2024-25 at KVK operated mandals of Kalyandurg area of Ananthapur district in 2.0 ha area to assess the impact of in-situ soil moisture conservation practices on growth, yield attributes, yield and economics of castor on rainfed alfisols. The study revealed that demonstrated practice of Chiseling followed by in-situ moisture conservation furrow recorded higher spikes/plant, more capsules/spike, bean yield, gross return, net return and B:C ratio than farmers practice. The demonstration of soil moisture conservation practices resulted in 17.6% higher in 2023-24 and 15.5% higher in 2024-25 over farmer’s practice. The enhanced yield in demonstrated soil moisture conservation practices can be attributed due to more spikes per plant and more capsules per spike. soil moisture conservation approaches also provided a greater economic advantage, and their adoption resulted in a better benefit-cost ratio (1.43) than farmers practice (1.39). From the findings It can be concluded that, under current circumstances, adopting Chiseling followed by in-situ moisture conservation furrow practices in castor cultivation could result in a higher economic benefit than farmers' practices, encouraging more farmers to adopt soil moisture conservation practices not only in castor but also in other major rainfed crops like Redgram, groundnut and pulses.