Science Class 9: Agricultural Production Management

There is an immediate correlation among better inputs and yields. The inputs inclusive of fertilizer, irrigation, etc., determine the cropping device and manufacturing practices. The manufacturing practices may be at distinct levels. They encompass ‘no price’ manufacturing, ‘low price’ manufacturing and ‘excessive price’ manufacturing practices.

Nutrient Management

Nutrients are provided to flowers with the aid of using air, water, and soil. There are sixteen vitamins which can be important for flowers and may be categorized as:

• Macro-vitamins: These are required with the aid of using flowers in huge quantities
• Micro-vitamins: These are required with the aid of using flowers in small quantities

Deficiency of those vitamins impacts physiological tactics in flowers such as reproduction, increase, and susceptibility to illnesses. To boost the yield, the soil may be enriched with the aid of presenting those vitamins with inside the shape of manure and fertilizers.

• Manure: It is ready with the aid of using the decomposition of animal excreta and plant waste
• It enables soil enrichment with vitamins in a natural count and helps to grow the soil fertility
• It enables in increasing the water retaining capacity in sandy soils
• It enables drainage and in heading off water logging in clayey soils

Classification of Manure: Based on the form of organic fabric used, it may be categorized as:

Compost and Vermicompost

• The method wherein farm waste fabric is decomposed in pits is called composting

• Common farm waste fabric are cattle excreta (cow dung), vegetable waste, home waste, sewage waste, straw, eliminated weeds, etc
• The compost is wealthy in natural count and vitamins

• Compost is likewise organized with the aid of the use of earthworms to hasten the method of decomposition of plant and animal refuse. This is known as vermicompost

• Green manure: enriching the soil in nitrogen and phosphorus

• Fertilizers: Fertilizers are commercially produced plant vitamins and deliver nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium

• Fertilizers are an issue with inside the better yields of excessive–price farming
• It needs to be carried out cautiously in phrases of right dose, time, and staring at pre- and post-utility precautions for his or her entire utilization.
• Excess fertilizer can result in water pollution. It additionally destroys soil fertility

Organic Farming

It is a farming device with minimum or little need of chemical compounds as fertilisers, herbicides, insecticides etc. and with a most enter of natural manures, recycled farm wastes, and bio-agents, with healthful cropping systems.

Irrigation

It is the exercise of presenting water to the land for the increase of plants.

• Irrigation on the proper levels at some stage in their developing season can boom the yields of any crop
• Sources of irrigation: Wells, canals, Rivers, Tanks, River Lift Systems, etc
• Recent initiatives: These encompass rainwater harvesting and watershed management

• This includes constructing small check-dams which result in a boom in floor water levels
• The check-dams forestall the rainwater from flowing away and decrease soil erosion

Droughts

Droughts arise due to shortage or abnormal distribution of rains.

• Drought poses a chance to rain-fed farming regions, in which farmers do now no longer use irrigation for crop manufacturing and rely best on rain
• Light soils have much less water retention capacity. In regions with mild soils, plants get adversely stricken by drought conditions
• Scientists have advanced a few crop sorts that may tolerate drought conditions

Cropping patterns

Different approaches of developing plants may be used to offer most advantage inclusive of:

• Mixed cropping: Mixed cropping is developing or extra plants concurrently at the identical piece of land

• Examples: wheat + gram, or wheat + mustard, or groundnut + sunflower
• Benefit: This reduces danger and offers a little coverage towards failure of one of the plants

• Inter-cropping: Inter-cropping is developing or extra plants concurrently at the identical discipline in an exact pattern. 

• Principle:
  • A few rows of 1 crop trade with some rows of a 2nd crop
  • The plants are decided on such that their nutrient necessities are distinct
• Example: soybean + maize, finger millet (bajra) + cowpea (lobia)
• Benefits:
  • It guarantees most utilization of the vitamins provided.
  • It additionally prevents pests and sicknesses from spreading to all the flowers belonging to 1 crop in a discipline

• Crop rotation: It is the development of various plants on a bit of land in a pre-deliberate succession. Depending upon the duration, crop rotation is carried out for distinct crop combinations

• The availability of moisture and irrigation centres determine the selection of the crop to be cultivated after one harvest
• If crop rotation is carried out well then 3 or 3 plants may be grown in 12 months with true harvests

Conclusion

Agriculture provides food for the whole world. As a result, it is critical to correctly cultivate and preserve harvested crops. During crop production, the soil should be thoroughly loosened and aerated. Manures and fertilizers must be applied with caution. Too much fertilizer harms the soil, while too little causes nutritional deficiency in the crop. The crops should be watered frequently. Unwanted plants should be eradicated from farmed lands. These plants suck the crop’s nutrients and stifle its growth and development. Harvesting ripe crops is done either mechanically or manually. The harvested grains are dried and stored to keep pests and diseases at bay.