Soil and Crop Management for Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

Sustainable management systems have continuously been promoted as an alternative to conventional farming practices for improving soil health and crop yield. However, benefits of these systems largely depend on the type of soil and climatic conditions prevalent locally. Loss of fertile topsoil due to water, wind, or tillage erosion, or due to management practices such as over-tillage of fragile soils, and removal of too much residue, can lead to reduced soil organic carbon (SOC) content, degraded soil health, loss of soil resiliency, and lower crop productivity. Conservation practices have been promoted to improve SOC content. Some of these practices include: conservation tillage, cover crops, organic farming, grazing management, and manure management. These conservation practices are designed to maintain C in sufficient areas and improve C in deficient areas. Conservation tillage is one of several management practices for increasing SOC and improving soil health of agriculture lands. The no-till (NT) system, in general, improves SOC content which is a strong indicator of soil health and crop productivity and strongly influences various ecosystem services. In contrast, intensive tillage generally stimulates soil C losses through enhanced decomposition and erosion. However, contrasting results have been obtained by different researchers under a variety of environmental conditions. Many of these findings are incomplete because they are based on information collected from a single site and soil type and measured over a relatively short duration. Process-based models can be used to integrate and extend the findings from multiple empirically-based research studies to aid in the prediction of the effects of conservation practices on SOC and greenhouse gas emissions over long periods of time, under a variety of environmental conditions, and for exploring novel management strategies to improve SOC and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Literature collected from research conducted globally by different researchers have shown that conservation practices often are helpful in improving SOC content, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and improving crop productivity. However, monitoring of these parameters should be considered over a longer duration under a variety of environmental conditions and integrated with process based models.