Intensive tillage based conventional agriculture have high global warming potential. Alternative to this, conservation agriculture (CA) systems utilize soils for the production of crops by reducing excessive tillage, maintaining crop residue on the soil surface, and adoption of crop rotations. The paper attempts to review the findings of CA based experiments under different cropping systems within and outside of the country. It has been found that CA increases and sustains the crop productivities, mitigates green house gas emissions from agriculture by enhancing soil carbon sequestration, improving soil nutrient status and water use efficiencies, and reducing fuel consumption. Mainstreaming of CA systems in Nepal is hindered by its knowledge gap, inadequate farm machineries and tools, small holdings, poor infrastructures, and lack of CA friendly policy support. Therefore, there is an urgent need to test, verify and scale-out the CA based technologies by Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) across the different agro-ecologies through farmer-centered partnership among the international institutions, public and private sector of Nepal.

Seed quality is the major concern for future crop production which largely depends on the nutrient we applied. To evaluate the effect of different doses of nitrogen and phosphorus on yield and seed quality of wheat an experiment was conducted during 2014/15 at agronomy research block of Agriculture and Forestry University. The experiment was designed on randomized complete block experiment with four levels of Nitrogen (0, 50, 100, and 150 kg N/ha) and Phosphorus (0, 25, 50, 75 kg P205/ha) Lab experiment was conducted to evaluate the germination and vigor test of the progeny seeds obtained from the mother plant. Highest grain yield (3.64t/ha) was associated with 100 kg N/ha which was statically similar with 150 kg N/ha, similarly highest grain yield (3.14t/ha) was associated with 75 kg P/ha which was at par with 50 kg P/ha and 25 kg P/ha. Highest germination percentage was associated with 150 kg N/ha (94.08) and 75 kg P/ha (93.66) Highest vigor was observed (36.5) at 100 kg N/ha which was at par with 150 kg N/ha whereas highest vigor was obtained at 50 kg P/ha (35.77) which was at par with 75 kg P/ha (35.71) Gross return, Net return and Benefit Cost ratio was highest at 100 kg N/ha which was at par with 150 kg N/ha. Similarly highest gross return (104.9 thousands) was observed at 75 kg P/ha, highest net income (54.81 thousands), and benefit cost ratio (2.105) was observed with 50 kg P/ha. Therefore for the better yield, good economic return and good seed quality application of nitrogenous fertilizers at 100 kg N/ha and phosphorus at 50 kg P/ha is useful under Chitwan condition.

Groundnut is one of the important summer oilseed crops of Nepal. The area under this crop has decreased considerably in the recent decade due to its high cost of cultivation for weeding and increased labor charge. Crop compete with the repeated flush of diverse weed throughout the growing season which causes substantial yield loss up to 50 -70 %. So, to find out an effective treatment for weed management, an experiment was conducted during 2017 and 2018 with nine treatments laid out in randomized complete block design (RCBD) in three replications. Treatments were constituted by four herbicides, two pre[1]emergence (pendimethalin and metribuzin) and two post emergences (quizalofop and propaquizafop). Pre emergence herbicide was followed by (fb) by hand weeding (HW) in one treatment and by the post emergence herbicides in another treatment. Cover mulch treatment with groundnut pods shell @ 3.0 t/ha was used. Farmer’s practice treatment consists of one hand weeding and one intercultural operation while no weeded plot was kept as control treatment. Data on weed dynamics, yield attributes and seed yield were varied among the treatments. Pre emergence herbicide supplemented by one hand weeding proved highly effective in controlling weeds. Pendimethalin @ 1.0 kg a.i/ha fb one HW showed superior performance in yield attributes, a high percentage (83.0%) of weed control efficiency (WCE), highest grain yield (2005 kg/ha), high benefits (NRs 222450) and BC ratio 2.84 among the treatments. The treatment metribuzin @ 0.5 kg a.i/ha fb one HW was also found as second best treatment with 74.4 % of WCE, yield (1882 kg/ha), benefits of Rs 205060 and BC ratio 2.65.

Field experiments were conducted for four years (2014)(2015)(2016)(2017) at five locations namely Salbani, Bhokraha, Simariya, Bhaluwa and Kaptanganj of Sunsari district to assess the changes in soil chemical properties under conservation agriculture (CA)-based practices in two cropping systems namely rice-kidney beanmaize at Salbani and rice-wheat at rest of the locations. In rice-wheat cropping system, there were four treatments: (1) conventional tillage (CT) for rice transplantation and subsequent wheat sowing, (2) conventional tillage rice transplantation followed by zero tillage (ZT) wheat, (3) unpuddled rice transplantation followed by zero tillage wheat, (4) zero tillage in both rice and wheat. Similarly, in ricekidney bean-maize cropping system, there were four treatments; (1) conventional tillage for rice transplantation and sowing of both kidney bean and maize, (2) conventional tillage rice transplantation followed by zero tillage in both kidney bean and maize, (3) unpuddled rice transplantation followed by zero tillage in both kidney bean and maize, (4) zero tillage in all three crops. Soil samples were taken at initial and every year after rice harvest.The soil samples were analyzed for total nitrogen, available phosphorus, available potassium, pH and soil organic matter.Total nitrogen (N) showed a slightly decreasing trend in the first three years and showed a slight increase at the end of experiment under ZT in all locations. The total N under ZT changed from 0.12 to 0.13%, 0.05 to 0.06%, 0.10 to 0.12%, 0.11 to 0.08% and 0.09 to 0.13% in Salbani, Bhokraha, Simariya, Bhaluwa and Kaptanganj, respectively. All locations showed the positive values of available potassium; Salbani revealing considerable change of 64.3 to 78.5 mg/kg in CT while 68.4 to 73.3 mg/kg in ZT condition. The treatment where rice was transplanted in unpuddled condition and zero tilled to wheat, had a mean value of available phosphorus and potassium as 87.3 and 81.9 mg/kg respectively. Soil pH ranged from 4.8 to 7.1 in CT while it was 5.2 to 6.8 in ZT across the locations. The change in soil organic matter in CT of all locations except Salbani was narrower as compared to ZT. ;f/f+ z ;g\ @)!$ d] b] lv @)!& gf] e] Da/ ;Dd ;' g;/L lhNnfsf] kfF r j6f :yfgx? M ;fnagL, ef] qmfxf, l;dl/of, en' jf / sKtfgu+ hdf ls;fgsf] v] tdf ;+ /If0f s[ lifsf] cEof;x?df cfwfl/t /xL laleGg afnL k| 0fnLx?df kl/If0fx? ;+ rfng ul/of] . o; If] qLo s[ lif cg' ;Gwfg s] Gb| , t/x/fn] pQm kl/If0fx? u/] sf] lyof] . ef] qmfxf, en' jf, l;dl/of / sKtfgu+ hdf wfg-ux' F / ;fnagLdf wfg-/fhdf-ds} afnL k| 0ffnLdf kl/If0fx? ul/Psf] lyof] . k| To] s :yfgdf # j6f ls;fgx?sf] v] tdf $ j6f ;+ /If0f s[ lifdf cfwfl/t

With the aim of identifying appropriate crop establishment methods in cereals-cereals, cereals-legumes, legumes-cereals and legumes-legumes cropping patterns, an experiment was carried out during 2019/20 to 2020/21 in National Agronomy Research Centre, Khumaltar. The experiment was laid out in split plot design with 8 treatments and 3 replications. Main plot was for two tillage methods [Zero tillage (ZT) and conventional tillage (CT)] and sub-plots for 4 different cropping patterns (maize-wheat, maize-lentil, soybean-wheat and soybean-lentil). In zero tillage, the soil was disturbed only along the rows for making seeding furrows and the previous crop residues were left anchored. The rest of the crop management practices were adopted as per the recommended practices. The data were analyzed using GenStat software. The results revealed that tillage treatments did not influence the winter crop yields in 2019, but in 2020, ZT recorded a significantly higher yield of wheat (4.9 Mt ha-1) compared to CT (3.4 Mt ha-1). Similarly, irrespective of crop establishment methods, pooled system yields and benefit: cost ratios were significantly influenced by various cropping patterns. The significantly higher system yield was recorded with maize-wheat (9.0 Mt ha-1) and the least with the soybean-lentil (5.2 Mt ha-1) cropping systems. Improvements in the soil properties were observed as SOM was 14% higher in ZT compared to CT. Similarly, average soil moisture and soil temperature in ZT and CT were found to be 30.2%, 27.5 °C and 28.7%, 29.4 °C, respectively. It is suggested that CA could possibly be an alternative production system for the fragile agro-ecology in the mid-hills of Nepal.