Soil Fertility Changes and Crop Productivity of Banana by Continuous Adoption of Banana-Cowpea Intercropping with Nutrient Management Practices

A front line demonstration was conducted in farmer’s field in an area of 8 ha with Poovan Banana variety taken as test crop. Banana is being cultivated to an extent of 2000 ha in six major banana growing blocks in the Namakkal district, Tamil Nadu. Indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and mono cropping of banana leads to widespread deficiency in available nutrients (OC-62%, N -67%, Zn-98%, B-58%). This leads to tremendous yield loss. Hence this study was conducted in randomized block design. From this study, it can be concluded that growing of cowpea as intercrop in banana along with application of integrated nutrient management practice (demo plot) observed higher available nutrient status than farmers practice. Among the all soil parameters, a noticeable increase was 29 kg in available nitrogen and 0.30% in organic carbon observed in soil after incorporation of cowpea along with recommended dose of nutrient application at timely interval. Growth and yield attributing characteristics also was recorded higher in demo plot than farmers practice (check). Highest banana yield of 34.80 t ha-1 was recorded in the demo plot (KVK intervention from sowing to harvest) whereas farmers practice (check) recorded 30.2 t ha-1. The demo yield proved its superiority by recording 15.07 % yield increase over check and having higher net return of Rs.1,89,543 with BC ratio 2.30 than check.