Effect of conservation agriculture on soil fungal diversity in rice-wheat-greengram cropping system in eastern Indo-Gangetic plains of South Asia.

Introduction: Conservation agriculture (CA) is emerging as an eco-friendly and sustainable approach to food production in South Asia. CA, characterized by reduced tillage, soil surface cover through retaining crop residue or raising cover crops, and crop diversification, enhances crop production and soil fertility. Fungal communities in the soil play a crucial role in nutrient recycling, crop growth, and agro-ecosystem stability, particularly in agricultural crop fields.

Can yield, soil C and aggregation be improved under long-term conservation agriculture in the eastern Indo-Gangetic plain of India?

Unlabelled: Deteriorating soil health, diminishing soil organic carbon (SOC), development of subsurface hard compact layer and declining system productivity are barriers to achieving sustainable production in the traditional rice-wheat cropping system (TA) in the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain of India. Conservation agriculture (CA), which favours minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention and crop diversification could be a viable alternative to the TA to address most of those major problems. With that in mind, a long-term experiment is being implemented at ICAR-RCER, Patna, Bihar, India, with four treatments: (a) TA, (b) full CA (fCA) and (c and d) partial CA (pCA1 and pCA2), differing in crop establishment methods, cropping system and crop residue management in a randomized complete block design.

Crop rotation and tillage management options for sustainable intensification of rice-fallow agro-ecosystem in eastern India.

Presently, rice-fallows are targeted for cropping intensification in South Asia. Rice-fallows a rainfed mono-cropping system remain fallow after rice due to lack of irrigation facilities and poor socio-economic condition of the farmers. Nevertheless, there is the scope of including ecologically adaptable winter crops in water-limited rice-fallow conditions with effective moisture conservation practices.

Sustainable intensification of rice fallows of Eastern India with suitable winter crop and appropriate crop establishment technique.

Rice fallow, a rainfed lowland agro-ecology, is presently gaining particular attention for sustainable cropping intensification in the South Asia. Nevertheless, cropping intensification of rice-fallow areas is largely challenged by non-availability of irrigation, the poor financial status of farmers and soil constraints. Indeed, fast depletion of the soil residual moisture remains the primary obstacle for growing a crop in succession in rice fallows.

Improvement of submergence tolerance in rice through efficient application of potassium under submergence-prone rainfed ecology of Indo-Gangetic Plain.

Potassium (K) is one of the limiting factors that negatively influenced rice growth and yield in submergence-prone soils. We conducted an experiment during the wet season of 2014-15 to achieve optimal doses of K and understand the effect of K application on submerged rice in terms of survival, chlorophyll content, non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), anti-oxidant activities and yield. Results revealed that chlorophyll and NSC content were significantly (P≤0.