Multiple cropping in tropical Asia

Proceedings of a symposium. The papers were presented during the annual meetings of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America in Knoxville, Tennessee, August 1975.

Present and potential multiple cropping patterns are determined by a wide range of physical and socio-economic conditions against a background of available technology. We have therefore chosen to present multiple cropping in tropical Asia in several parts which describe first the economic and physical factors which influence multiple cropping, then the present farming systems within which multiple cropping is practiced and their direction of change, and finally, the major multiple cropping patterns. Relevant research needs are summarized.

Tropical Asia includes the area between the Himalayan mountains and the equator from Pakistan and India to Indonesia, New Guinea, the Philippines, southern Taiwan, the southeastern portion of the People's Republic of China and mainland southeast Asia. The dominant crops in the region are mainly determined by water supply. Cropping systems in the drier regions of India and Pakistan are based on corn, sorghum, millet, and wheat, while the wetter areas of these same countries are nearly all of east Asia, having high rainfall, are rice based. (author)