Pulses in India have long been considered as the poor man’s only source of protein. Pulses are grown on 22-23 million hectares of area with an annual production of 13-15 million tonnes (mt). India accounts for 33% of the world area and 22% of the world production of pulses.
The commonly grown pulse crops of India includes chickpea or bengalgram (Cicer arietinum), pigeonpea or arhar (Cajanus cajan), greengram or mungbean (Vigna radiata), blackgram or urdbean (Vigna mungo), lentil or masur (Lens culinaris), fieldpea or matar (Pisum sativum var.arvense), lathyrus or khesari (Lathyrus sativus), cowpea or lobia (Vigna unguiculata), mothbean (Vigna aconitifolia) and frenchbean or rajmash (Phaseolus vulgaris).
About 90 % of the global pigeonpea, 65% of chickpea and 37% of lentil area falls in India, corresponding to 93%, 68% and 32% of global production, respectively. Due to stagnant production, the net availability of pulses has come down from 60 g/day/person in 1951 to 31 g/day/person (TCMR recommends 65 g/day/capita) in 2008.
The most important states of pulses production are Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, which together accounts for 82 % of the production from 74% area.
The most important pulse crop in the country is chickpea which accounts for 47% of total pulse production from 33% of total pulse area. Six states (Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra and Karnataka) together contribute 90% of total chickpea production.
The second most important pulse is pigeonpea with most of the area concentrating in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. The urdbean and mungbean are largely concentrating in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
The role and importance of pulse crops in Indian agriculture is briefly summarised hereunder:
1. Pulse as a Source of Nutrients:
Pulses form an essential component of the daily diet of Indians who are predominantly vegetarians. The combination of daal + roti or daal + bhat (rice) in India provides all the essential amino acids in requisite amounts and helps eliminate protein-calorie malnutrition. Being the cheapest source of dietary protein, the pulses are easily affordable by the people of low income group.
The pulse protein is biologically balanced and this group of crops is rich source of essential minerals and complement well with cereal-based diet because of high amount of lysine. It is a rich source of protein and possesses 2-3 times more than that of many other cereals.
As compared to 16.4 and 15.1 g to the world and Asia, respectively the per caput availability of pulses in India is 33.7 g/day (though less than the recommended), providing approximately 117 kilo calorie energy and 6.9 g protein, besides being main source of calcium and iron.
Some of the nutritional benefits and corresponding health benefits are as follows:
i. Low fat/high complex carbohydrate content — weight control
ii. Reduction of plasma cholesterol — cardiovascular health
iii. Low glycemic index – diabetes prevention/control
iv. Colonic bacterial fermentation — bowel health, and
v. Phytochemical content — cancer prevention.
2. Pulses and Soil Health:
Pulses have unique property of maintaining and restoring soil health and soil fertility through biological N fixation as well as conserving and improving physical properties of soil by virtue of their deep root system, and consequently open up the soil and add considerable amount of organic matter through leaf and flower fall.
Under pulse crops, soil aggregation, soil structure and infiltration rates improve considerably. By virtue of these characters they thrive well on marginal lands and provide vegetative cover to the soil surface and thus help reducing soil erosion. The tall bushy crop of pigeonpea also acts as the shelter against wind erosion and makes the microclimate favourable for crop growth.
3. Pulses and Biological N Fixation:
Pulses are endowed with rare quality of fixing atmospheric N in their root nodules through bacterium called Rhizobium. It is estimated that the total N fixed biologically is more than that manufactured by the fertilizer companies together in the world. It has been estimated that chickpea can fix (convert atmospheric nitrogen to organic nitrogen which can be available for subsequent crops) up to 140 kg N per ha in a growing season, although measured values are usually in the range of about 20-60 kg N/ha.
It has been well established that long duration pigeonpea in north India can fix in the order of 200 kg N/ha when grown over a 40 week period. Pigeonpea can also have substantial residual effects on subsequent crops. For example, medium-duration pigeonpea grown at the ICRISAT (Asia Center) could benefit a subsequent maize crop to an extent equivalent to 40 kg N/ha.
The amount of N fixed by different pulse species varies from 60 to 300 kg/ha, and they do not need N fertilization excepting as a starter dose of 10-20 kg N/ha. Such a huge amount of N production puts this group of crops in forefront. Taking into account these externalities (fertility improvement and sustainability) in pulses production, there is a need to provide incentives (subsidies for seed, etc.) for expansion of area under pulses production.
4. Pulses and Soil Fauna:
On account of improved physical conditions of the soil under pulses, the microbial activity increases, which help in mobilizing the plant nutrients.
5. Pulses and Water Management:
In the area of water scarcity some of the pulses thrive better than other crops and thus helps in maintaining ecological balance. When grown as a cover crop, pulses help in minimizing water loss through soil runoff, recharging soil profile, and consequently reduce flood hazards.
6. Pulses for Multiple Cropping:
There are varieties of mungbean, urdbean and pigeonpea which when involve in rotations increase cropping intensity. Early pigeonpea-wheat and wheat-mungbean in north India have become popular rotations which not only increase cropping intensity but also the total production from the unit land. This also increases the area under pulses.
7. Pulses in Intercropping:
The plant type of pulses is such that they are amenable to intercropping with cereals, millets, oilseeds and even pulses. The most important intercrops are pigeonpea/mungbean/urdbean/soybean, sorghum/pearl millet/pigeonpea, pigeonpea/cotton, pigeonpea/groundnut, chickpea/mustard, chickpea/linseed, etc. These intercrops not only increase total production but also increase area under pulses.
8. Pulses Sustain Cereal-Based Cropping System:
Pulses can play pivotal role in sustaining cereal based cropping system in the country where rice-wheat (9.7 m ha) and rice- rice (2.1 m ha) cropping systems are essential for food security.
Pulses in rotation with cereals can effectively break disease cycles and inoculum buildup of major pathogens of both cereals and pulses since both do not act as alternatives to harbour each other’s pathogen. The short duration pulse varieties developed for multiple cropping systems have tremendous potential in raising cropping intensity as well as improving soil health.
9. Pulses as Export Commodities:
There are several pulses such as kabuli gram, bold seeded lentil, rajmash, green peas, etc. that have export market, particularly in Arabian and European countries.
10. Pulses as Fodder and Concentrate:
Cowpea, rice bean, peas, pigeonpea, mungbean and urdbean are also used as the source of green fodder. In the process of dal making, seed coat and broken cotyledons form nutritious concentrate and feed.
Major Constraints in Pulse Production:
The yield of pulses has remained virtually stagnant for the last 40 years (539 kg/ha in 1961 to 544 kg/ha in 2001 to 617 kg/ha in 2009). India’s rank in productivity in 24th in chickpea, 9th in pigeonpea, 23rd in lentil, 104th in dry bean, 52nd in fieldpea and 98th in total pulses. The yield levels of kharif pulses (417 kg/ha to 557 kg/ha) is lower than rabi pulses (684 kg/ha to 751 kg/ha).
It indicates that rabi pulse crops like chickpea, lentil, moong and urad and long duration pigeonpea have a higher potential in expanding the production of pulses crops. In north India, rice-wheat crop rotation is predominant, and there is little scope for replacing wheat with rabi pulse crops, while in south India, there are vast patches of rice fallows, which can be utilized for sowing rabi pulse crops, as there is no strong competitive crop in the rabi season.
India is the biggest producer, consumer and importer of pulses. Domestic production of pulses has been more or less stagnant, making India heavily dependent on imports. India consumed 18 million tonnes of pulses in 2007-08, of which about 15.11 million tonnes were locally grown.
Major pulse-producing areas are located in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. According to an estimate, per capita pulses consumption in India had fallen to 12.7 kg/year in 2008, compared to 27.3 kg/year in 1958-59, along with a corresponding fall in the per capita consumption of protein.
It’s shocking, but, in spite of the green revolution and betterment in standard of living, Indians today are consuming far less protein than they used to. Protein consumption in rural India has dropped from 63.5g/capita/day in 1983 to 55.8g/capita/day in 2005, and in urban India from 58.1 to 55.4g/capita/day during the same period. A large proportion of the Indian population is vegetarian, and pulses are an important source of protein in their daily diet.
India is the largest producer (~25 per cent of world production) and consumer (~30 per cent of world consumption) of pulses. However, per capita domestic production of pulses has dropped from 63 g in 1951 to 36 g in 2008.
If we consider some of the major sources of protein, pulses turn out to be one of the most economical for human consumption. Pulses contain 18-25 per cent protein. Currently, however, only 11 per cent of Indians’ protein needs are met by pulses. Their remaining needs are either met through other sources or not at all.
Depending upon the climatic factors, the pulses production has been fluctuating for few decades. The capacity of pulse crops to withstand adverse moisture conditions has made them the crops of the poor-resource base of un-irrigated areas.
The pulses are generally grown by ‘risk averse farmer’. They are resource poor with small and fragmented holdings, having little or no access to costly inputs, credits and markets. Any improvement in the resource base, like provision of irrigation, would remove pulse crops from such areas.
The production base of pulses not only gets shifted with developmental activities such as irrigation etc. but also they are pushed into regions where pulses confront with extremely adverse and unpredictable environmental factors, resulting in unstable performance. Even with the best efforts, pulses production and productivity has been stagnant.
Due to the low productivity-low input nature, pulses are grown as residual/alternate crops on marginal lands after taking care of food/income needs from high productivity-input crops like paddy and wheat by most farmers.
Also, they grow as rainfed crops with little or no modern yield enhancement inputs. The low priority accorded to pulse crops may be related to their relatively low status in the cropping system.
As a crop of secondary importance, in many of these systems, pulse crops do not attract much of the farmer’s crop management attention. In addition to this, these crops are adversely affected by a number of biotic and abiotic stress, which are responsible for a large extent of the instability and low yields.
The major constraints in pulses production are as follows:
1. Agro-Ecological Constraints:
There has been a high degree of risk in pulses production. More than 87% of pulses are grown under rainfed condition. The mean rainfall of major pulse growing states such as MP, UP, Gujarat and Maharashtra is about 1,000 mm and the coefficient of variation of the rainfall is 20-25 %.
Moisture stress is the often-cited reason for crop failures. Terminal drought and heat stress results in forced maturity with low yields. Drought stress alone may reduce seed yields by 50% in the tropics.
A quantum jump in productivity can be achieved by applying lifesaving irrigation especially in rabi pulses grown on residual moisture. Abnormal weather and poor soil fertility adversity affects its productivity to a large extent. Unfavourable weather condition like erratic and uncertain rainfall and low and high temperature are responsible for limiting pulses production.
Continuous rain invites more insect pests and diseases both in kharif and rabi season. Low temperature in chickpea and pigeonpea and also in lentil in many parts of the countries resulted in severe damage by frost and chilling injury. High temperature at fruiting stage leads to force maturity especially in rabi pulses like gram, lentil and kharif pulses like pigeonpea.
High temperature coupled with moisture stress at flowering increase flower drop and bud abortion, resulted in considerable reduction in yields of major pulses. In warmer areas, where temperature and soil moisture conditions are often not favourable towards the end of the season, even if good plant growth is obtained, grain yield remains poor.
Indeterminate growth habit and staggered flowering and fruiting are serious problems particularly in pigeonpea, greengram, mothbean, etc. Indeterminate growth habits cause inter-plant competition for photosynthesis resulting in poor partitioning to yield components, which reduce grain yield of the crop. Moreover, this growth habits poses serious problems at harvesting and picking of pods. Non-synchronous flowering in pulses is also considered inconvenient for effective control on insect pests through insecticidal sprays.
Pulses are also sensitive to excess soil moisture, acidity, alkalinity and salinity. In areas of relatively higher rainfall, irrigation often results in more harm than good. Pulse crops are more sensitive to waterlogging, and fields with high watertable become unfit for cultivation.
2. Physiological Limitations:
There is a general feeling that pulses (C-3 plants) suffer from inherently low yield potential and are a physiologically inefficient group of plants compared to cereals (C-4 plants) such as sorghum and maize. The fact that C-3 plants usually do better in cool climates suggests that C-3 plants are better for rabi season. However, the disturbing feature is that the harvest index- (HI) in pulses is low compared to cereals.
Harvest index is defined as seed yield per unit of recoverable biomass. In pulses, it is only 15-20% compared to 45-50% in case of cereals such as wheat and rice. Low HI results from excessive vegetative growth, but can be overcome by early partitioning of dry matter into seeds and evolving biotechnology and genomic tools to incorporate good features of C-4 plants into C-3 plants.
Pulses in general have a high rate of flower drop. In pigeonpea, over 80% of the flowers produced in a plant are shed; by decreasing flower drop, yield can be increased considerably. Recent increase in yield levels in pigeonpea is due to release of long duration (annual) varieties, which maximise utilisation of assimilates in filling the available sink of a large number of flowers.
3. Non Availability of High Yielding Varieties:
Traditional pulse varieties available with the farmers are characterized with luxuriant vegetative growth, indeterminate long duration of growth, shading of flowers, susceptible to insect, pests and diseases, thus are poor yielder. In any crop, generally an increase in the production and productivity is brought about by the wider availability and adoption of improved varieties of seeds.
Nearly 400 improved varieties of different pulse crops have been released for cultivation since the inception of coordinated pulses improvement programme in 1967. But at present, only 124 varieties are in the production chain.
Among them a dozen are popular among farmers. The wide gap between the requirement of certified/quality seeds and its distribution in India is a matter of great concern. The seed replacement ratio is very low (2-5%), while the required seed replacement ratio is 10 percent.
The concept of efficient plant type is relevant only in the context of the environment it exploits for its growth and economic production. Pulses have to perform in a hostile environment of high temperature, limited soil moisture, low inputs, poor management and competition with competing crops.
The improved varieties identified recently have been selected for medium inputs. Thus they fail to do well on farmer’s fields, and are not suitable to compete with high-yielding, input requiring varieties of cereals. Moreover, improved varieties are not as productive as those of cereals and millets.
4. Lack of Proper Agronomic Management:
Because pulses as a group can utilize the soil moisture and nutrition better than cereal crops, they are grown in areas which are left out after satisfying the demand of cereals and other cash crops. However, pulse crops also do respond to soil moisture and other inputs and hence, need appropriate agronomic practices for better yields.
Agronomic practices which are affecting pulses productivity are given below:
(i) Poor Management Condition:
The concept that pulses can grow and produce better yields on marginal lands without any inputs and management is not true. Being protein-rich crops, pulses require more energy input per unit of production as compared to cereals. But on the contrary, they are grown under conditions of energy starvation resulting in poor yields.
(ii) Unavailability of Rhizobium Culture:
Rhizobium culture in general, is the cheapest input with high cost- benefit ratio. However, use of Rhizobium culture is not getting popular among the farmers because unlike fertilizers, the specific cultures of desired quality are not readily available in the market. Many a times spurious cultures are supplied to the farmers which are not effective and the farmers lose faith in using Rhizobium culture.
(iii) Improper Sowing Time:
Time of sowing makes a big difference in the production of pulses. The pulses are generally sown after the completion of planting of other crops and thus, they get the last preference and priority in sowing schedules. The late sowing not only results in poor growth but also makes them prone to high incidence of insect pests, diseases and to adverse temperature at the ripening stage. All these factors reduce the yield of individual plant.
(iv) Inadequate Seed Rate and Poor Plant Stand:
Adequate plant population makes a big difference in yield. Farmers generally do not follow the recommended seed rate. For example, the farmers have been using 10 to 15 kg/ha seed as against the required rate of 20 to 25 kg/ha in green gram, blackgram and pigeonpea. As a consequence the plant population on the farmer’s fields is very poor, and this is one of the major causes of low productivity.
(v) System and Method of Sowing:
Poor drainage/water stagnation during the rainy season causes heavy losses to pigeonpea on account of low plant stand and increased incidence of phytophthora blight disease, particularly in the states of UP, Bihar, WB, Chhattisgarh, MP and Jharkhand. Ridge planting has been found very effective in ensuring optimal plant stand and consequently higher yield. A simple ridgerly available can effectively be used for this purpose.
Generally pulses are sown broadcast. This practice is unscientific as it interferes in weeding, interculturing, spraying, and harvesting. Also, a large proportion of the seeds are eaten away by birds and a portion of the seeds fail to germinate because of the lack of adequate moisture at the soil surface.
(vi) Weed Infestation:
Due to their inherent slow growth at the initial stage, pulses suffer greatly due to weed infestation. The critical period for weed competition in the pulses varies from 20 to 45 days after sowing. If weeds are not controlled during this period, marked crop losses ranging from 30 to 50% in chickpea, 50 to 70% in greengram, and black gram, as high as 90% in pigeonpea have been recorded.
(vii) Non-Adoption of Plant Protection Measures:
More than 250 insect species are reported to affect Pisces in India. Among these, nearly one dozen cause heavy crop losses. On an average 2-2.4 million tonnes of pulses with a monetary value of nearly Rs. 6,000 crore are lost annually due to ravages of insect pest complex. Among them, pod borer (Helicovera armigera) causes the most harm, followed by pod fly, wilt and root rot.
Another important pest affecting pulses are nematodes, among which root-knot nematodes are important in terms of spread and damage to crop yield, which have been effectively controlled by bio- agents. Pulses are susceptible to a large number of diseases and insect pests which cause heavy losses.
(viii) Plant Type (Idiotype):
Pulses are C3 plant with long height, indeterminate and bushy type growth, luxuriant, excessive flowering, non-synchronous maturity, high shattering losses, high biomass yield and very low harvest index that is less than 20%. Then photosynthetic rate and the activity of the photosynthetic enzymes decline after the beginning of pod setting and nodules become ineffective. Beside the conversion of carbohydrate, protein also utilizes some of the energy, leading to low productivity of pulses crop.
The quantum of yield advances made through breeding in cereals such as maize, sorghum, millets, etc. is much higher than that of pulses. This difference in case of pulses arises primarily due to lack of commercial exploitation of hybrid vigor due to lack of mass pollen transfer mechanism and non-availability of effective male-sterility system. With the exception of pigeonpea (ICPH-8) the hybrid vigor for yield has not been exploited in all other pulse crops.
5. Socio-Economic Constraints:
The farmer being poor, cannot afford to use costly inputs under such uncertain conditions of farming. Their input-mobilization power is also very limited, primarily because of the high cost of input and their non-availability in time and space. The cost benefit ratio of pulses crop is less attractive as compared with that of wheat and rice.
This has compelled the farmers to cultivate pulse on marginal and sub-marginal lands. The newly available technology is generally production-oriented without having any consideration for the size of the holding and the socio economic status of the farmers. The first priority of the small and marginal farmer is to grow enough cereals for his own consumption.
6. Research and Extension Gaps:
No doubt about the yield potentials in the form of improved varieties and management practices has already been created. But the production technologies which have recently been developed have not reached the farmers in a meaningful way.
In fact, most of the research findings have remained scattered and probably confined to scientific reports. Therefore, overall impact on pulse production has only been marginal. This is because wide gaps exist between the yields of improved varieties and production technology on research farms and those obtainable on farmer’s fields.
7. Post-Harvest Constraints:
The pulses crops exhibit what is known as an indeterminate growth habit whereby vegetative growth continues side by side even during the reproductive phase. This results in flowering and consequent fruiting in flushes. Fortunately, this phenomenon is confined predominantly in kharif pulses.
Post-harvest losses account for 9.5% of total pulse production. Among post-harvest operations, storage is responsible for the maximum loss (7.5%). Processing, threshing and transport cause 1%, 0.5% and 0.5% losses, respectively. Among storage losses, pulses are also most susceptible to damage due to insects (5%) compared to wheat (2.5%), paddy (2%) and maize (3.5%).
Appropriate storage structures (metal storage bins) need to be popularised. One can also increase the processing efficiency in dal mills. Due to recent advances in processing technology, the net availability of end products (dal) in modern dal mills has been increased to 70-75% compared to 65-66% in traditional dal mills.