Tillage, green manuring and crop residue management impacts on crop productivity, potassium use efficiency and potassium fractions under rice-wheat system.

The conventional crop production practices including intensive tillage and open field crop residue burning in world' largest rice-wheat system (RWS) are adversely affecting crop productivity besides deteriorating natural resources and ecosystems' sustainability. In order to improve system productivity, potassium (K) use efficiency and apparent K balance, adoption of conservation tillage in a RWS with residue management is considered highly effective. We therefore, studied the effect of wheat straw retention and green manure (GM) in rice (main plot treatment), and tillage and rice residue management in subsequent wheat (sub-plot treatments) on crop productivity, K use efficiency and its transformation amongst different fractions of variable solubility.

Exogenous silicon and hydrogen sulfide alleviates the simultaneously occurring drought stress and leaf rust infection in wheat.

Silicon (Si) and hydrogen sulfide (HS) are known to enhance plant defense against multiple stresses. Current study was conducted to investigate the application of Si and HS alone as well as in combination, improved physiological resilience of wheat plants to drought stress (DS) and pathogen-Puccinia triticina (Pt) infection. We aimed to increase the wheat plant growth and to enhance the DS tolerance and Pt resistance with the concurrent applications of HS and Si.