Impact of crop establishment and residue management on soil properties and productivity in rice‐fallow ecosystems in India

The degradation of agricultural land, both chemical and biological, is a big concern all over the world. Crop cultivation practices that are distinctive to each location have negative consequences for agricultural production. Therefore, there is an urgent need for better crop and soil management techniques. This experiment was conducted for 5 years (2016–2020) to identify the best crop establishment‐cum‐residue management (CERM) practices and suitable crops for succession after the rice harvest in rice‐fallow ecosystems of India. Experimentation was conducted in the split‐plot design and each treatment was replicated thrice, having CERM in main‐plot and post‐rainy season/winter crops in sub‐plot. All the CERM treatments had two variants, with crop residue (R+) and without crop residue (R−). Rice yields were markedly higher (19.1%–32.2%) in transplanted puddled rice with residue (TPR‐R+) over conventional‐till direct seeded rice (CTDSR) and zero‐till DSR (ZTDSR) treatments. However, TPR adversely impacted the performance of all the post‐rainy pulses/oilseed crops. Post‐rainy season crop yields under ZTDSR/CTDSR were 14.9%–45.8% higher leading to higher system productivity as compared to TPR. ZTDSR with residue retention showed higher soil aggregation. The practice of ZTDSR increased the soil dehydrogenase activity (46.2%), urease activity (29.8%), soil microbial biomass carbon (65.4), and fluorescein diacetate activity (9.0%) in the crop root zone with 3.3‐ and 4.47‐times higher earthworm population and earthworm biomass, respectively. The rice‐pulse system showed 1.74‐times more earthworm population over rice‐oilseed sequences. Total soil organic carbon (SOC) stock in ZTDSR was 21.8% higher over TPR in 0–45 cm soil profile. Thus, the adoption of ZTDSR practices and diversification of rice‐fallows with pulses crops is recommended for enhancing the crop productivity, increasing SOC stock, and improving soil biological properties in the rice‐fallow ecosystems of India.

[1]  Surinder Kumar,et al.  Assessment of land use systems for CO2 sequestration, carbon credit potential, and income security in Vindhyan region, India , 2021, Land Degradation & Development.

[2]  M. Verma,et al.  An impact of agronomic practices of sustainable rice-wheat crop intensification on food security, economic adaptability, and environmental mitigation across eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains , 2021, Field crops research.

[3]  M. Verma,et al.  Can yield, soil C and aggregation be improved under long‐term conservation agriculture in the eastern Indo‐Gangetic plain of India? , 2021, European journal of soil science.

[4]  M. Verma,et al.  Influence of tillage based crop establishment and residue management practices on soil quality indices and yield sustainability in rice-wheat cropping system of Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains , 2021, Soil & tillage research.

[5]  P. Gautam,et al.  Identification of energy and carbon efficient cropping system for ecological sustainability of rice fallow , 2020 .

[6]  P. Aggarwal,et al.  Conservation agriculture had a strong impact on the sub-surface soil strength and root growth in wheat after a 7-year transition period , 2019 .

[7]  S. Mooney,et al.  Impact of soil puddling intensity on the root system architecture of rice (Oryza sativa L.) seedlings , 2019, Soil and Tillage Research.

[8]  Rakesh Kumar,et al.  Short‐term (5 years) impact of conservation agriculture on soil physical properties and organic carbon in a rice–wheat rotation in the Indo‐Gangetic plains of Bihar , 2019, European Journal of Soil Science.

[9]  Rakesh Kumar,et al.  Sustainable intensification of rice fallows of Eastern India with suitable winter crop and appropriate crop establishment technique , 2019, Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

[10]  P. K. Upadhyay,et al.  Rice fallows in the eastern India: Problems and prospects , 2019, The Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences.

[11]  Neal R Haddaway,et al.  Tillage intensity affects total SOC stocks in boreo-temperate regions only in the topsoil—A systematic review using an ESM approach , 2018 .

[12]  Rakesh Kumar,et al.  Evaluation of long-term conservation agriculture and crop intensification in rice-wheat rotation of Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia: Carbon dynamics and productivity , 2017, European journal of agronomy : the journal of the European Society for Agronomy.

[13]  Prasad S. Thenkabail,et al.  Mapping rice-fallow cropland areas for short-season grain legumes intensification in South Asia using MODIS 250 m time-series data , 2016, Int. J. Digit. Earth.

[14]  C. Campbell,et al.  Diversifying crop rotations with pulses enhances system productivity , 2015, Scientific Reports.

[15]  B. Das,et al.  Assessing the effect of puddling on preferential flow processes through under bund area of lowland rice field , 2013 .

[16]  M. S. Venkatesh,et al.  Long-term effect of pulses and nutrient management on soil carbon sequestration in Indo-Gangetic plains of India , 2013, Canadian Journal of Soil Science.

[17]  J. Ladha,et al.  Effect of Tillage and Crop Establishment Methods on Physical Properties of a Medium-Textured Soil under a Seven-Year Rice−Wheat Rotation , 2011 .

[18]  G. Adam,et al.  Development of a sensitive and rapid method for the measurement of total microbial activity using fluorescein diacetate (FDA) in a range of soils , 2001 .

[19]  W. Gams.  Soil enzymes , 1973, Netherlands Journal of Plant Pathology.

[20]  Anjani Kumar,et al.  Non-target effect of continuous application of chlorpyrifos on soil microbes, nematodes and its persistence under sub-humid tropical rice-rice cropping system. , 2017, Ecotoxicology and environmental safety.

[21]  R. Turco,et al.  Soil Enzyme Activities and Biodiversity Measurements as Integrative Microbiological Indicators , 1996 .

[22]  R. Yoder.  A Direct Method of Aggregate Analysis of Soils and A Study of the Physical Nature of Erosion Losses(1) , 1936 .