Bidi tobacco, being a clean-cultivated crop, resulted in the maximum soil loss and water loss. The soil and water losses were very much reduced, especially the water loss, when a cover-cum-manure crop was grown during the early monsoon before tobacco was transplanted. The inclusion of a cover-cum-green-manure crop increased the yield of tobacco from 1,585 to 1,850 kg/ha (i.e. an increase of 16.7%) and reduced the need for nitrogenous fertilizer dose by 45%. Bajra+mung strip-cropping also reduced the water loss considerably.

Groundnut grown under two soil-climate conditions has been shown to reduce both the soil and water loss.

Urad grown under two soil-climate conditions has been shown to be a run-off and soil-loss-permitting crop like maize.

Intercropping maize with urad or arhar did not reduce the loss of soil and water.

STRIP-CROPPING.   Strip-cropping is essentially another form of rotation. Its importance in controlling the run-off erosion and thereby maintaining the fertility of the soil is now universally recognized. Strip-cropping, in effect, employs several good farming practices, including crop rotation, contour cultivation, proper tillage stubble-mulching, cover-cropping, etc. Strip-cropping is of the following different forms :
(i) Contour strip-cropping
(ii) Field strip-cropping
(iii) Wind strip-cropping
(iv) Permanent or temporary buffer strip-cropping.

Contour strip-cropping.   Contour strip-cropping is the growing of soil-exposing and erosion-permitting crop in strips of suitable widths across the slopes on contour, alternating with strip of soil-protecting and erosion-resisting crops. Contour strip-cropping shortens the length of the slope, checks the movement of run-off water, helps to desilt it and increases the absorption of rain-water by the soil. Further, the dense foliage of the erosion-resitant crops prevents the rain from beating the soil surface directly. It is advisable to rotate the strip-planting by sowing a non-resistant crop, following an erosion-resistant crop and vice versa.

Very little experimental work has been done to determine the best combination of crops and other factors in a strip-cropping programme. The data collected at the Dry Farming Research Station, Sholapur, Maharashtra, have given the following indications :
(i) Groundnut, Moth bean (Phaseolus acontifolius) and Horse gram (Dolichos biflorus) are the most efficient and suitable crops for checking erosion.
(ii) The normal seed-rates of leguminous crops, other than groundnut, do not give sufficiently dense canopies to prevent rain drops from beating the soil surface in much cases. The seed-rate should be trebled.
(iii) The most effective width of the contour strips for cereals, such as jowar and bajra, is 21.6 m and for the intervening legume 7.2 m

Field strip-cropping.   It is the planting of farm crops in more or less parallel strips across fairly uniform slopes, but not on exact contours.

Wind strip-cropping.   It consists of planting tall-growing crops such as jowar, bajra or, maize, and low-growing crops in alternately arranged straight and long, but relatively narrow, parallel strips laid out right across the direction of the prevailing wind, regardless of the contour.

Permanent or temporary buffer strip-cropping.   In the case of permanent or temporary buffer strip-cropping, the strips are established to take care of critical, i.e. steep or highly eroded, slopes in fields under contour strip-cropping. These strips do not form part of the rotation practiced in normal strip-cropping, and they are generally planted with perennial legumes, grasses or shrubs on a permanent or temporary basis.

MIXED CROPPING.   The main reason for the lack of interest in strip-cropping in India is the small size of the holdings of the farmers. Instead, the Indian farmers have been interested in mixed farming which is very extensively adopted by him. Some of the important objectives of mixed cropping are a better and continuous cover of the land, good protection against the beating action of the rain, almost a complete protection against soil erosion and the assurance of one or more crops to the farmer. The roots of various species in a mixed crop feed at different depths in the soil.

Improvements in the practice of mixed cropping tend towards the rationalization of the mixtures with respect to composition and content and towards better arrangements than from the usual medley of crops. The line-sowing of mixed crops gives rise to the practice of intercropping.

Out of five years of trial, the wheat crop failed in one year owing to the extreme drought, and gram failed in one year because of the incidence of gram wilt. In both these years, the other mixed crops was a success, thus ensuring at least one crop to the farmer when mixed cropping was practiced. The wheat+gram mixture gave a consistently higher yield than the pure crops individually. The increase in net profit as a result of mixed cropping was 89 per cent and 183 per cent over the pure crops of wheat and gram, respectively.