ABSTRACT

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, India

Department of Microbiology, Osmania University, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India

CONTENTS

35.1 Designing Crop Production Systems for Sustainability ........................................... 502

35.2 Design of the Long-Term Experiment ......................................................................... 503

35.3 Crop Growth and Yield ................................................................................................. 506

35.4 Soil Properties and Nutrient Balances......................................................................... 508

35.5 Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 512

References ................................................................................................................................... 514

Crop production systems that require chemical fertilizers, pesticides, machinery for

tillage, and irrigation water are expensive. In countries such as India, they have started

to undermine the water security of future generations, contributing to soil and water

pollution particularly when synthetic pesticides are not used properly. It is true that

agriculture as practiced 100 years ago without modern inputs had lower productivity

than present systems of production. However, many premodern practices, such as the

use of organic manures to enhance soil fertility and of herbal extracts to protect crops,

can be made more efficient by the scientific knowledge that has been gained over

the past century, making crop production more sustainable while still achieving high

productivity.