Integrated management enhances crop physiology and final yield in maize intercropped with blackgram in semiarid South Asia

Photosynthesis, crop health and dry matter partitioning are among the most important factors influencing crop productivity and quality. Identifying variation in these parameters may help discover the plausible causes for crop productivity differences under various management practices and cropping systems. Thus, a 2-year (2019–2020) study was undertaken to investigate how far the integrated crop management (ICM) modules and cropping systems affect maize physiology, photosynthetic characteristics, crop vigour and productivity in a holistic manner. The treatments included nine main-plot ICM treatments [ICM ₁ to ICM ₄ – conventional tillage (CT)-based; ICM ₅ to ICM ₈ – conservation agriculture (CA)-based; ICM ₉ – organic agriculture (OA)-based] and two cropping systems, viz., maize–wheat and maize + blackgram–wheat in subplots. The CA-based ICM module, ICM ₇ resulted in significant ( p < 0.05) improvements in the physiological parameters, viz., photosynthetic rate (42.56 μ mol CO ₂ m ^–2 sec ^–1), transpiration rate (9.88 m mol H ₂O m ^–2 sec ^–1) and net assimilation rate (NAR) (2.81 mg cm ^–2 day ^–1), crop vigour [NDVI (0.78), chlorophyll content (53.0)], dry matter partitioning toward grain and finally increased maize crop productivity (6.66 t ha ^–1) by 13.4–14.2 and 27.3–28.0% over CT- and OA-based modules. For maize equivalent grain yield (MEGY), the ICM modules followed the trend as ICM ₇ > ICM ₈ > ICM ₅ > ICM ₆ > ICM ₃ > ICM ₄ > ICM ₁ > ICM ₂ > ICM ₉. Multivariate and PCA analyses also revealed a positive correlation between physiological parameters, barring NAR and both grain and stover yields. Our study proposes an explanation for improved productivity of blackgram-intercropped maize under CA-based ICM management through significant improvements in physiological and photosynthetic characteristics and crop vigour. Overall, the CA-based ICM module ICM ₇ coupled with the maize + blackgram intercropping system could be suggested for wider adoption to enhance the maize production in semiarid regions of India and similar agroecologies across the globe.