Response of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) to conservational agricultural practices for enhancing productivity under rainfed conditions in vertisols

Conservational agricultural practices involving tillage and crop residues retention were evaluated to enhance the productivity of chickpea during rabi in vertisols under rainfed conditions through field experiment conducted for four consecutive years (2015-16 to 2018-19) at Regional Agricultural Research Station, Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh.The investigation was carried out with three tillage methods (Conventional tillage -two harrowings + planking; Reduced tillage -one harrowing + planking and Zero tillage) and two types of crop residue (kharif sown foxtailmillet) retention (with crop residue retention @ 2.5 t ha -1 and without crop residue retention) and sown at spacing of 30 cm × 10 cm in split plot design replicated four times.Pooled analysis of experimental results indicated that significantly higher soil moisture was observed in zero tillage (23.1 % and 20.5 %) and crop residue retention @ 2.5 t ha -1 (22.7 % and 20.3 %) at 15 DAS and 30 DAS respectively.A significantly higher number of pods (25.0 plant -1 ), seed yield (1192 kg ha - 1 ) and net returns of Rs 21,959 ha -1 was observed in conventional tillage and was at par with reduced tillage (22.7 plant -1 , 1127 kg ha -1 and Rs 21,088 ha -1 respectively).A significantly higher number of pods (25.3 plant -1 ), seed yield (1222 kg ha -1 ), net returns (Rs 22,268 ha -1 ) with BCR of 1.76 was observed with crop residue retention @ 2.5 t ha -1 .