Vol. 12, Issue 8 (2023)

Author(s):
Gangadasari Sravana Lakshmi, UK Hulihalli, Ashoka P, Suma S Biradar and Uma N Kulkarni

Abstract:
With increasing population in India, food demand is also increasing. But the area under crop cultivation is stagnant or decreasing day by day. To meet the growing food demand, increasing the production per unit area is one of the solutions which can be met by crop diversification through intercropping. Intercrop leads to spatial and temporal intensification in crop production by efficient use of natural resources which provides crop insurance against climatic aberrations and increases sustainability. It is the time to concentrate not only on food security but also nutritional security which can be achieved by including nutri-rich crops in cultivation and consumption. Pseudocereals are one such category of crops. Buckwheat belonging to polygonaceae is one of the pseudocereal and nutri-rich crop which is grown in nort-eastern parts of India and recently introduced to Northern Karnataka region. Despite its potential benefits its production is less because of lack of proper knowledge in its cultivation and consumption. Hence to check the compatibility and fesibility of buckwheat with tall growing kharif crops of this region the experiment was conducted in two consecutive years i.e. in kharif 2021 and 2022 to know the growth of buckwheat as an intercrop and influence of buckwheat intercropping on soil microbial and nutrient dynamics.