Energy and yield optimization of field and vegetable crops in heavy crop residue for Indian conditions-climate smart techniques for food security

Abstract

In NW-India cereal and vegetable crops are sown in paddy, sugarcane, maize, cotton (P–S-M-C) residue and left over crop residue management is major energy intensive operation and is pre requisite for sowing and better establishment of next cereal, pulses, vegetables and oilseed crops, which needs to be completed in a window period of 15–20 days. The dehaulming operation involved in potato crop is done manually and is energy intensive (2562 MJ ha−1).The peas and canola are harvested manually and energy involved is 2744 MJ ha−1 and 343 MJ ha−1. The incorporation of previous crop residue resulted in higher yields and more profits. The highest energy was involved in incorporation technique used for crop residue management as 156.06 GJ ha−1 followed by baler + incorporation technique as 141.71 GJ ha−1. The energy involved in wheat seeders were 6.04 GJ ha−1 and 4.17 GJ ha−1 respectively. The maximum energy input was observed for Potato and sugarcane crop as 480955.65 MJ ha−1 and 808743.63 MJ ha−1 respectively. The maximum yield of potato crop was found as 22.58 t ha−1 with field shredder and mould board plough operation. The berseem crop recorded highest energy productivity as 0.36 kg MJ−1. The use of incorporation technique was mostly in potato crop, in-situ techniques for wheat, barley sowing and baler for vegetable, pulse, oilseed crops.