Author(s):

Vishwajith KP, PK Sahu, P Mishra, BS Dhekale and Namrata Upadhyay

Abstract: Guided by the food and food habits of the people, crops and cropping systems are developed in any particular ecogeographic region. At the same time ecogeographic and environmental factors also result in types of crops or cropping system could be developed in a particular area. Thus, a mutual dependence. Growing of similar or same crops year after year may result in depletion or imbalance of some specific nutrients in soil and in turn soil productivity. Consequently, sustenance of the specific crop or cropping system come under question. Though sustainability is a complex, contested and multifariously defined concept, by and large it means longevity or continuity or persistence of a system. In case of sustainable land management system, we are to provide due consideration to most of the pillars of sustainability viz. productivity, security, protection, viability and acceptability. As such the question of good indicators of sustainability and measurement of sustainability comes in to consideration. In literature one can find a good number of researches on good indicators (social, economical, biophysical) of sustainability (Landres, 1992; Meyer et al., 1992; Pomeroy, 1997; Walker 1997 etc). Yield data on particular crop or crop sequence emanated from long term experimental plots or from a particular area can effectively be used in measuring the sustainability of crop or crop sequence in particular area. Researches on measuring the yield sustainability, though quite few in number, but have been taken up by Narain et al., 1990, Singh et al., 1990; ICARDA,1994; Katyal et al., 1998, 2000; Gangwar et al., 2003; Sahu et al. 2005, Pal and Sahu, 2008. But most of these were aimed at measuring the yield sustainability of nutrient combinations in particular crop or crop sequence. In this paper an attempt has been made to summarize these measures along with some new measures with an objective to study the yield sustainability of particular crop over the growing regions and compare across the states/regions. Existing and developed measures of sustainability have been used on time series yield data of gram over the major growing states of India to compare the measures as well as the states w.r.t. their yield sustainability. The study revealed that productivity of gram in all the states under study has followed non linear nature. India as a whole is shows the highest sustainability in productivity of gram. Among the states, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan has higher capacity to produce continuously for long time. On the other hand Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are the showing lowest sustainability for gram productivity. By and large results of existing measures and proposed measure are almost in conformity with each other. Though, unique results are not obtained but a clear idea about the states having sustainability in yield of gram can be identified and which in turn may help the policy makers to take appropriate steps boosting the crop yield of gram during the years to come.

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