Improved production technologies for harnessing genetic potential in semi arid tropics of India

Abstract

Demand for food and other agri-products continues to accelerate and to meet this galloping need under ofdeteriorating production environment and challenging climate change, while breeders and biotechnologists are busy inpushing the genetic potential, agronomists and growers are trying to reach the ever elusive potential thresholds throughbetter production practices. Presently, the yield gap between the actual and the potential for many crops being in the rangeof 15 to 60 %, the prime task before production scientists is to bridge this gap. Innovative practices such as transplanting,drilling (rice), nipping, raised seed bed, zero till etc. are helpful in improving source and sink potential while technologiessuch as drip irrigation, fertigation, seed priming, resource optimization, yield targeting etc. being strategic aim for betteringresource use efficiency and yield maximization. Experimental evidences in semi arid tropics of India suggest betterment inyield by 10-15 % with some practices to as high as 50-70 % with critical interventions, and in yield targeting the realizationat higher targets most of the time was 92-97 %, while in some cases it par excelled. A few of such promising practices andtechnologies enabling realization of crop potentialare briefed in this paper.