Crop Production

Crop improvement technologies improve the potentialities of higher yield and food quality in crops. New varieties and hybrids of various crops released by various crop improvement techniques are ultimately aimed to increase the yield and better quality.

But, these potentialities are realisable only when crops are managed and grown under conditions conducive to express their genetic potentialities. The techniques to release the potentialities of varieties and hybrids of various crops are termed as crop production techniques.

These techniques include:

1) Soil management techniques - which in turn include soil fertility management practices and soil conservation practices.

2) Water management techniques - both under irrigated and rain fed situations.

3) Weed management techniques - which include chemical weed control, cultural weed control and integrated weed control practices.

4) Cultivation practices to grow crops.

5) Nutrient management techniques.

All these aim at providing most congenial situations for a crop to express its potentiality. Among them, nutrient management techniques aim at providing sufficient nutrients at the required stage in the required form, while water management techniques aim at providing ideal situations for growth of crops. Weed management techniques aim at keeping the land weed free so that crop does not experience competition by unwanted plants, while soil management techniques aim at maintaining the fertility of soil and retention of soil in such a way that it is available for long term production.

Nutrients can be provided to crops by fertilizers or manures or both. As the crop plants remove large quantity of nutrients for their growth, these nutrients need to be replenished in such a way that they are available to crops on long term basis.