The climatic, edaphic and socio-economic diversity of the Indian crop production scene is dotted with many cropping patterns and systems. The cropping systems considered to be major contributors to the national food baskets are rice-wheat, rice-rice, pearl-millet-wheat, sorghum-wheat, maize-wheat and systems, where land was kept fallow either in Kharif or Rabi season occupy 19 mha area. April 2008