“…Indiscriminate ploughing, residue removal/burning, unbalanced use of chemical fertilizers and extractive farming exacerbated the deterioration of soil and atmosphere quality ( Montgomery, 2007 ), soil organic carbon (SOC) pool, soil biodiversity, compaction, increased runoff, accelerated erosion loss of nutrients, carbon and water from the ecosystem, loss of soil resilience and decrease in ecosystem services ( Lal, 2015 ). Therefore, adoption of the balanced cropping practices, such as conservation tillage ( Zhang et al, 2015 ), recycling of crop residues (CRs) ( Devi et al, 2017 ), application of manure ( Tadesse et al, 2013 ) and farmland fallow ( Liu et al, 2012 ), would be much sought after in the present circumstances for improving the soil quality, ecosystem function and yield sustainability of RWCS. Conversion of conventional agricultural practices to conservation has great potential for increasing the soil quality through the presence of C substrate, increasing soil biodiversity, MBC, soil aggregation and improving water and nutrient use efficiency ( Tisdall and Oades, 1982 ; Ghosh et al, 2015 ; Li et al, 2018 ).…”