Title : Conservation agriculture for sustainable production in the maize-wheat system--towards future commitment to the global food basket
Abstract:
Over exploitation of conventional farming in wheat- maize system emerged as the prime cause of concern for soil sickness. Concurrently, alarming practice of indiscriminate stubble burning deteriorates soil health, substantially. Better understanding these cognitive issues insisted us to explore soil tillage and crop residue management under the aegis of ‘Conservation Agriculture’ (CA) in wheat - maize system. The study derived phenomenal achievement with zero tillage (ZT) followed by minimum tillage (MT); although, in compliance with consequential impacts of crop residue retention (+R); while, eventuality of stubble burning practice (- R) impacted sever deterioration in soil health, especially in conventional tillage (CT). Results illustrated significantly higher grain yields of wheat (5.64 - 5.78 t ha-1) and maize (6.52-6.74 t ha-1) at (ZT + R) stands across the year than those (5.24-5.25 t ha-1 and 5.75-5.76 t ha-1) at conventional stand (CT-R). Even (MT + R) stands also produced significantly higher grain yields of wheat (5.59-5.70 t ha-1) and maize (6.29-6.40 t ha-1) followed by those (5.30-5.33 t ha-1) and (6.29-6.40 t ha-1) at (CT + R) stands than (CT - R) stands.
Consequently, progressive enhancement of system productivity (11.60 - 12.0 t ha-1) in terms of wheat equivalent yield (WEY) was spectacular at (ZT+R) stands, significantly higher than those (10.52 - 10.59 t ha-1) at (CT-R) stands, followed by those (11.34-11.64 t ha-1) at (MT + R) and also those (10.63-10.78 t ha-1) at (CT+R) stands.
Rhizosphere development was also improvised at (ZT + R) stands accounting significantly higher root mass density and volume density (14.5 mg cm-3 and 6.7 x 10-3 cm3 cm -3) in wheat and (19.45 mg cm-3 and 10.5 x 10-3 cm3 cm -3) in maize respectively than those (5.0 and 8.85 x 10-3 cm3 cm -3) at (CT -R) stands.
Soil health improvement was also significantly pronounced more at (ZT + R) stands accounting 39.45% soil porosity, 7.64 pH, 0.370 dS m-1 electrical conductivity (EC), 10.56 mm h-1 hydraulic conductivity (HC), 0.458% soil organic carbon (SOC), and 272.5, 18.36 and 254.8 kg ha-1 N, P and K than at conventional (CT -R) stands as compared with initial soil status, respectively. Therefore, aiming at our modest endeavor developing a viable cutting-edge technology for mitigating soil sickness could envisage the stewardship of zero tillage along with crop residues to achieve soil health improvement fostering sustainable maize and wheat production in system perspective mode.
