Sustainability, productivity, profitability and soil health with conservation agriculture based sustainable intensification of oilseed brassica production system

Abstract

Conservation agriculture (CA) practices are getting space world-wide to answer many emerging challenges like; declining factor productivity, deteriorating soil health, water scarcity, climate change, and farm profitability and sustainability. Oilseed brassica (Indian mustard, Brassica juncea L.), a winter oilseed grown under rainfed agro-ecosystem is vulnerable to low yields, high production cost, degrading soil and water quality, and climatic vagaries. The present study was undertaken on CA-based sustainable intensification of Indian mustard for enhancing inputs efficiencies, farm profitability and sustainability. Permanent beds with residue retention (PB + R) improved mustard equivalent yield (11.4%) and system grain yield (10.6%) compared with conventional tillage without residue (CT − R). Maize–mustard rotation (Mz–M) increased system grain yield (142.9%) as well as mustard equivalent yield (60.7%) compared with fallow-mustard (F-M). Mz–M system under PB + R increased sustainable yield index (376.5%), production efficiency (177.2%), economic efficiency (94%) and irrigation water productivity (66%) compared with F-M under CT − R. PB + R increased soil organic carbon (SOC) stock at 0–15 cm (17.7%) and 15–30 cm (29.5%) soil depth compared with CT − R. Addition of green gram in rotation with mustard improved SOC at 0–15 cm (27.4%) and 15–30 cm (20.5%) compared with F-M system. CA-based cluster bean-mustard/GG-M system increased N productivity, whereas, P and K productivity improved with Mz–M system compared with F-M under CT − R. Thus, CA-based Mz–M system should be out-scaled in the traditional rainfed fallow-mustard system to improve the farm production and income on holistic basis to make the country self-sufficient in edible oils.

Biological and Chemical Vicissitudes in Soil Rhizosphere Arbitrated under Different Tillage, Residues Recycling and Oilseed Brassica-Based Cropping Systems

“…Thus, soils having less than 40 Mg C/ha stocks should be targeted with added residue biomass in a rotation to enrich the SOC. The soils of the current study site contained ≤10 Mg C/ha [63], which might be the possible reason for CA practices showing significant responses in terms of increased SOC compared to CT practices under semi-arid rainfed ecology. The effect of CA on SOC also depends on soil clay content, pH, EC, heavy metal and moisture, etc.…”

Irrigation and conservation agricultural practices improve crop yield, water productivity and energetics of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) in Vertisols of central India

“…Similar to ZT, permanent bed planting is performed by CT for bed formation and seed sowing. Thereafter, ZT is performed in these beds, except that they are reshaped after each growing season, and these beds are found to improve plant water productivity and profitability over the long term (Jat et al, 2021). Controlled traffic treatments preserve natural soil structure through ZT and crop residue coverage, resulting in reduced evaporative losses (Maillard et al, 2018).…”

Effect of Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) on Growth and Yield of Mustard (Brassica juncea L.)

“…Mustard (Brassica juncea L.) belongs to the family cruciferae popularly known as rai and is one of the important Rabi season oilseed crops of North India. India is the third largest producer (11.30%) of rapeseed and mustard in the world [2]. In India, it is the second most important edible oilseed after soyabean and groundnut.…”

“…Total area under rapeseed and mustard in India is 6.85 Mha (Million hectare) with a total production of 9.12 MT (Metric tonnes) with the productivity of 1331 kg ha -1 [3]. India meets 60% of the domestic edible oil requirements through imports and is ranked the 7th largest importer, thus improving the yield and quality of mustard is one of the important objectives of sustainable crop production in the country [2]. Among different Brassica species, Indian mustard share about 80% in area and production, occupies prominent position in India.…”