System Approach- Types of Cropping
1. Mixed cropping: It is growing of two or more crops simultaneously intermingled without any row pattern. It is a common practice that the seeds of different crops are mixed in certain proportion and are sown. E.g.: Kharif Groundnut + Jowar, Cotton + Mesta (Ambadi), Jowar + Mustard or Wheat + Mustard.
2. Sequence cropping: It is growing of two or more crops in sequence on the same piece of land in a farming year. It Amy is doubles (2 crops), triple (3 crops) or quadruple (4 crops). E.g.: Cotton – Groundnut, Jowar – Wheat, Mung – Rabi Jowar, and Hy. Jowar – Gram. Etc.
3. Relay Cropping: It refers to planting of succeeding crop before harvesting the preceding crop like a relay race where a crop hands over the land to next crop in quick succession. Ratoon cropping or rattooning refers to revising a crop with regrowth coming out of roots or stalks after harvest of the crop. E.g.: Sugarcane or Jowar rattooning.
4. Efficient cropping systems: for a particular farm depend on farm resources, farm enterprises & farm technology. The farm resources include land, labour, water, capita; and infrastructure. When land is limited, intensive cropping is adopted to fully utilize available waer & labour. When sufficient and cheap labour is available, vegetable crops are also included in the cropping system as they require more labour. Capital intensive crops like sugarcane, banana, turmeric, ginger, etc. find a place in the cropping system when capital is not a constraint. In low RF (less than 750 mm/annum) monocropping is followed & when RF is more than 750 mm intercropping is practiced. With sufficient irrigation water, triple, quadruple cropping is adopted when other climatic factors are not limiting. When the farm enterprise includes dairy the cropping system should contain fodder crops as a component.