Designing profitable, resource use efficient and environmentally sound cereal based systems for the Western Indo-Gangetic plains

Hanuman S. Jat,Andrew J. McDonald,Ashim Datta,Tanuja Poonia,Parbodh C. Sharma,Mangi L. Jat,Suresh K. Kakraliya,Virender Kumar,Yadvinder-Singh Yadvinder-Singh,Madhu Choudhary

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-76035-z

Abstract

In the western Indo-Gangetic plains, issues of deterioration in soil, water, and environment quality coupled with low profitability jeopardize the sustainability of the dominant rice–wheat (RW) system. To address these issues, crop diversification and conservation agriculture (CA)-based management hold considerable promise but the adoption of both approaches has been low, and additional evidence generation from a multi-criteria productivity and sustainability perspective is likely required to help drive the change. Compared to prevailing farmers’ practice (FP), results suggest that CA-based rice management increased profitability by 13% and energy use efficiency (EUE) by 21% while reducing irrigation by 19% and global warming potential (GWP) by 28%. By substituting CA-based maize for rice, similar mean profitability gains were realized (16%) but transformative improvements in irrigation (− 84%), EUE (+ 231%), and GWP (− 95%) were observed compared to FP. Inclusion of mungbean in the rotation (i.e. maize-wheat-mungbean) with CA-based management increased the system productivity, profitability, and EUE by 11, 25 and 103%, respectively while decreasing irrigation water use by 64% and GWP by 106% compared to FP. Despite considerable benefits from the CA-based maize-wheat system, adoption of maize is not widespread due to uneven market demand and assured price guarantees for rice.

Highlights

In the western Indo-Gangetic plains, issues of deterioration in soil, water, and environment quality coupled with low profitability jeopardize the sustainability of the dominant rice–wheat (RW) system
Substitution of conservation agriculture (CA)-based management practices in single crop helps in saving resources e.g. direct-seeded rice (DSR) instead of puddled transplanted rice (PTR)[4] and sowing of maize on permanent beds (PB) instead of flat beds sowing
Rice yield was not much changed with different agronomic management practices over the first 2-years. The yield of both conventional tillage (CT) and ZT-DSR declined over CT rice (Sc1) after 2 years of experimentation. These results align with the findings of Kreye et al.[14] and Peng et al.[35] who found that multi-micronutrient deficiencies and nematode infestation increases over time in DSR, resulting in yield declines compared to puddled transplanted rice (PTR)

Summary

Introduction

In the western Indo-Gangetic plains, issues of deterioration in soil, water, and environment quality coupled with low profitability jeopardize the sustainability of the dominant rice–wheat (RW) system To address these issues, crop diversification and conservation agriculture (CA)-based management hold considerable promise but the adoption of both approaches has been low, and additional evidence generation from a multi-criteria productivity and sustainability perspective is likely required to help drive the change. Compared to prevailing farmers’ practice (FP), results suggest that CA-based rice management increased profitability by 13% and energy use efficiency (EUE) by 21% while reducing irrigation by 19% and global warming potential (GWP) by 28%. Abbreviations C Carbon CA Conservation agriculture CH4 Methane CO2 Carbon dioxide CT Conventional tillage DAS Days after sowing DSR Direct seeded rice EUE Energy use efficiency FB Fresh beds FP Farmers’ practice GHG Greenhouse gas GWP Global warming potential IGP Indo-gnagetic plains IPCC Intergovernmental panel on climate change. Water-logging is one of the major constraints to maize cultivation in the IGP, but some evidence suggests that it can be managed through CA-based management practices[10,11]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion