Comparative analysis of production and profitability of seasonal vegetable, tuber and spice crops under the mid-hills of Meghalaya

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during 2011–2013 at Horticulture Experiment Farm, ICAR Research Complex for NEH Region, Umiam, Meghalaya to identify the economical vegetable crop and cropping system for improving profitability of the farmers. The high yielding varieties of 15 warm season and 13 cool season crops including tuber and spices were evaluated. Among the warm season crops, tomato was found highly profitable with net income of Rs 467500/ha and input–output ratio of 6.45 followed by brinjal and bottle gourd. Similarly, in cool season crops, the highest yield per hectare was recorded from cabbage. However, the highest input–output ratio was from dolichos bean followed by cabbage and broccoli. Tomato–cabbage cropping system was found to be most economical with Rs 745000 (net income) and 5.75 (input–output ratio) followed by brinjal– cabbage (solanaceous–crucifer vegetable based cropping system). Under legume–cucurbits systems, dolichos bean– bottle gourd and dolichos bean–cucumber cropping systems were highly profitable with higher net income and input–output ratio. The resource rich farmers can get the higher income from the production of tomato/brinjal– cabbage/broccoli cropping system and resource poor farmers can get higher income with dolichos bean/French bean–bottle gourd/cucumber cropping systems with least investment. Further, farmers can increase their income by improving cropping intensity (CI) up to 200% over the existing 100% from rice/ginger/turmeric/maize based monocropping.