Conservation agriculture based integrated crop management sustains productivity and economic profitability along with soil properties of the maize-wheat rotation

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 1962
• Main Authors: Pooniya, Vijay, Zhiipao, R. R., Biswakarma, Niraj, Kumar, Dinesh, Shivay, Y. S., Babu, Subhash, Das, Kajal, Choudhary, A. K., Swarnalakshmi, Karivaradharajan, Jat, R. D., Choudhary, R. L., Ram, Hardev, Khokhar, Mukesh K., Mukri, Ganapati, Lakhena, K. K., Puniya, M. M., Jat, Rajkumar, Muralikrishnan, L., Singh, A. K., Lama, Achal
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 04-02-2022; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 704/106/694/2739; 704/158/2445; 704/172/4081; Agricultural conservation; Agricultural practices; Agricultural production; Agriculture; Alkaline phosphatase; Carbon; Conservation; Corn; Crop management; Crop planting; Crop residues; Crop rotation; Crop yield; Crops; Economics; Field tests; Grain; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Organic carbon; Organic soils; Production costs; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Soil conservation; Soil profiles; Soil properties; Sustainable yield; Urease; Water use; Wheat
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-05962-w

Field experiments were conducted to evaluate eight different integrated crop management (ICM) modules for 5 years in a maize-wheat rotation (M
WR
); wherein, ICM
1&2
-ˈbusiness-as-usualˈ (conventional flatbed maize and wheat, ICM
3&4
-conventional raised bed (CT
RB
) maize and wheat without residues, ICM
5&6
-conservation agriculture (CA)-based zero-till (ZT) flatbed maize and wheat with the residues, and ICM
7&8-
CA-based ZT raised bed maize and wheat with the residues. Results indicated that the ICM
7&8
produced significantly (p < 0.05) the highest maize grain yield (5 years av.) which was 7.8–21.3% greater than the ICM
1-6
. However, across years, the ICM
5-8
gave a statistically similar wheat grain yield and was 8.4–11.5% greater than the ICM
1-4
. Similarly, the CA-based residue retained ICM
5-8
modules had given 9.5–14.3% (5 years av.) greater system yields in terms of maize grain equivalents (M
GEY
) over the residue removed CT-based ICM
1&4
. System water productivity (S
WP
) was the highest with ICM
5-8
, being 10.3–17.8% higher than the ICM
1-4
. Nevertheless, the highest water use (T
WU
) was recorded in the CT flatbed (ICM
1&2
), ~ 7% more than the raised bed and ZT planted crops with or without the residues (ICM
4-8
). Furthermore, the ICM
1-4
had produced 9.54% greater variable production costs compared to the ICM
5-8
, whereas, the ICM
5-8
gave 24.3–27.4% additional returns than the ICM
1-4
. Also, different ICM modules caused significant (p < 0.05) impacts on the soil properties, such as organic carbon (S
OC
), microbial biomass carbon (S
MBC
), dehydrogenase (S
DH
), alkaline phosphatase (S
AP
), and urease (U
RE
) activities. In 0.0–0.15 m soil profile, residue retained CA-based (ICM
5-8
) modules registered a 7.1–14.3% greater S
OC
and 10.2–17.3% S
MBC
than the ICM
1-4
. The sustainable yield index (S
YI
) of M
WR
was 13.4–18.6% greater under the ICM
7&8
compared to the ICM
1-4.
Hence, this study concludes that the adoption of the CA-based residue retained ICMs in the M
WR
could sustain the crop yields, enhance farm profits, save water and improve soil properties of the north-western plans of India.