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The direct seeded rice (DSR) has emerged as an economically viable and sustainable option for timely rice establishment due to labor shortage amid Covid-19 pandemics. The crop production practices differ greatly among puddled transplanted rice (PTR) and DSR. Therefore, we compared the performance of different rice varieties viz. PR-121, PR-126 and Pusa-44 under two contrasting establishment methods (PTR vs. DSR). The study highlights that of the total area under rice, the highest area under DSR was in Sultanpur Lodhi block (about 68.2%), while the lowest area in Dhilwan block (about 41.9%). Results revealed higher benefit-cost ratio of rice establishment under DSR technology, compared with the PTR technology, regardless of the rice variety due to reduced (about 23.9%) cost of cultivation associated with rice establishment under DSR technology. About 68.9 per cent of the respondents perceived PTR as low cost effective, while about 4.7 per cent perceived PTR as highly cost effective. Conversely, about 16.0 per cent of respondents perceived DSR as low cost effective, while a large proportion (about 55.7%) perceived DSR as highly cost effective. About 14.1, 76.4 and 10.4 per cent of PTR farmers, while about 10.4, 69.8 and 14.1 per cent of DSR farmers perceived it as low, medium and highly profitable.

Cumulative soil evaporation estimation without CE(s − i) and with CE(s + i) inundation days viz. rainfall or irrigation days is an important aspect, affecting yield and quality of sugarcane, lacking in the literature. To this end, present replicated study conducted during spring 2019–2020 in irrigated sugarcane under semi-arid conditions, with differential rice straw mulch rates viz. 0, 4, 6, and 8 t ha−1 constituting T1, T2, T3, and T4 treatments, respectively. Attempts being made to delineate CE(s − i), CE(s + i) for which mini-lysimeters and pan evaporation (Ep) data used, respectively, and their effect on yield and quality parameters of sugarcane. From tillering to grand growth stage, CE(s − i) from T1 reduced to 2.4, 9.7, and 26.5% in T2, T3, and T4 plots, respectively whereas 7.14 and 15.3% reductions recorded while shifting from T2 to T3 and T3 to T4 plots. However, CE(s + i) reduced to 1.4, 14.4, and 5.6% while shifting from T1 to T2, T2 to T3, and T3 to T4 plots. Periodic growth parameters viz. cane height, width, Brix, and relative leaf water contents reported to improve but non-significantly in T2, T3, and T4 plots as compared to T1 plots. Averaged SPAD readings were reported to 7.6, 14.9, and 17% higher at 311 DAS in T2, T3 and T4 plots, compared to T1 plots. T3 plots reported significantly higher cane yields and commercial cane sugar (t ha−1) than T1 and T2 plots but at par with T4 plots. Therefore, T3 plots loaded with 6 t ha−1 of mulch reported to reduce CE(s − i), CE(s + i), and improve cane yield, and quality.

Sugarcane is an important cash crop cultivated globally from temperate to tropical regions. Improving cane yield and recovery sustainably is an important research area for improving livelihoods of the cane farmers. Among different approaches sill judicious and integrated use of nutrients as per plant needs holds the special place. Further, applying need based N management through optical gadgets viz. Leaf color chart (LCC), SPAD, Green seeker, integrated nutrient management, fertigation, special focus on for improving the efficiency of different fertilizers through different state of art technologies. For having higher fertilizer use efficiency in sugarcane, some aspects of fertilization especially How much? What type of? When to add? Is it worth? Number of splits? Mode of action? must be considered both for seed or ratoon. Further, soil textural class and climatic conditions on one side while on changing climatic conditions also affected it a lot. Further, inherent fertility status of the soils is also an important factor which affects the fate of applied fertilizers. There is a need to create awareness in between the farmers for not to applying huge quantity of different fertilizers as per their neighboring farmers, rather farmer should be smart enough to adopt different technologies in a smart way for having better benefits and thus livelihoods as the purpose is to fed the canes but not the soil. In the present review an attempt being made to compare the comparative performance of sugarcane with respect to fertilization for finally guiding the sugarcane cultivars. Idea is to enlighten them regarding need based sustainable fertilization with an aim to improve the fertilizer use efficiencies for having improved yield and quality parameters instead of loading the soil with much of fertilizers which further have environmental concerns.

Field experiments were conducted during 2016 and 2017 cropping system to evaluate the performance of polymer-coated urea (PCU) viz. neam coated urea (NCU) at different doses. The experiment was con...

The labor scarcity amid lockdown due to COVID-19 and reduced labor migration from other states made timely rice establishments a big challenge for the farmers in Punjab. The direct seeded rice (DSR) emerged as economically viable option for timely rice establishment, but several farmers faced difficulties in DSR during kharif--2020 and therefore, adopted diverse crop production and management practices. A detailed survey was conducted in different blocks of Kapurthala district (Punjab) and data were collected from randomly selected 106 farmers. The results showed that 13.2 per cent of total farmers completely failed in DSR. There was large variation in different crop production and management practices followed by the farmers. Seed rate varied between 19.9 and 22.2 kg ha-1 and was significantly higher in Kapurthala, while lowest in Dhilwan block. Nitrogenous fertilizer application was higher by 13.0 and 5.7 per cent in Sultanpur Lodhi and Nadala blocks than the district average of 167.9 kg N ha-1. Phosphoric and potash fertilizer application rates varied between 6.7 and 12.1 kg P ha-1 and 3.3 and 9.7 kg K ha-1, respectively. Rice grain yield varied between 64.3 and 70.2 q ha-1 under DSR, as compared with 71.3 and 76.3 q ha-1 under puddled transplanted rice (PTR). The irrigation water productivity varied between 3.6 and 4.4 kg ha-1 mm-1 in DSR, compared with 3.3 and 3.6 kg ha-1 mm-1 under PTR. The results highlight the lack of proper knowledge and adoption of recommended practices for DSR technology among farmers, which require further intensive extension efforts for creating awareness in between them.

Under the changing climatic scenarios, sustaining agricultural production and enhancing input use efficiency is highly crucial to ensure food security in future. As crop productivity is considerably affected by soil characteristics such as soil organic carbon (SOC), nutrient availability, pH, salinity and soil moisture etc., thus their spatial variability needs to be assessed for site-specific and more efficient management. RS, GIS and GPS can be used quite successfully for assessing spatial variability in these properties. Recently with the advent of highly sophisticated sensors, it is possible to assess various soil properties by observing spectral reflectance in different wavelength bands and computing various spectral indices from the data recorded through satellite remote sensing. Spectral reflectance in different wavelength bands viz. visible, thermal and microwave etc. along with different spectral indices computed from spectral reflectance viz. normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI), modified soil adjusted vegetation index (MSAVI), ratio vegetation index (RVI), soil moisture index (SMI), normalised difference water index (NDWI) and normalized difference salinity index (NDSI) etc. are used to retrieve different soil properties from satellite data. Similarly, various spatial interpolation techniques viz. inverse distance weighting (IDW), ordinary kriging (OK), radial basis function (RBF) and empirical bayes kriging (EBK) etc. are used for spatial interpolation of various soil characteristics. A critical review concluded that geospatial techniques can be used successfully for retrieval and spatial interpolation of various soil properties, which can be highly beneficial in site specific management leading to improved input use efficiency and sustained agricultural productivity for future food security.

Water footprints (WFs) of rice are quite higher viz. 992 billion cubic metres per year (Gm3 yr−1) than from the other cereals which further responsible for the lower water productivity. Out of global WFs for crop production viz. 7404 Gm3 yr−1 corresponds to 78 % green, 12 % blue, and 10 % grey water, respectively. Around 3000-4000 litres of water required for one kg of rice grains and conventional puddle transplanted flood irrigations responsible for this. Therefore, there is an urgent need to cut down rice WFs share. Over irrigated pounded water under conventional puddle transplanted rice responsible for the emissions of the green house gases in atmosphere, which further has its own complications. With time, due to excessive withdrawals of the underground water, the water table is declining at a faster rate and seems to be beyond the reach of the middle class rice farmers. Rice water productivity declining day by day due to huge water demand of rice crop followed by reduced yields. A major share of the applied irrigation water lost/evaporate in the atmosphere. Soil water tension controls the soil moisture dynamics and directly linked to the plant need based approach. Being a kharif crop, rice season faces harsh summers and where evaporative demands of atmosphere intensified to many folds and thus, irrigation water has to be applied frequently. Annually additional water of worth US $ 39 million is withdrawn in NW Indian Punjab state for feeding crops, particularly rice. Tensiometer is the only instrument provided to the rice farmers for applying irrigation water judiciously based on the plant need which further cut down WFs from 18 to 22%. This practise where on one side saves irrigation water, improves declining land as well as water productivity of rice, also controlled the emissions of GHGs from the soil.

Paddy-wheat crop rotation is responsible for declining soil health, underground water table, arising new micronutrient deficiencies, new weed flora, and resistance to herbicides, declining both land and water productivity and is claimed to be capital and energy-intensive, more particularly in emerging countries. This is further aggravated when micronutrients are deficient, particularly zinc (Zn), which plays an important role in human health, especially in developing countries. Zn biofortification is a technique in which the inherent Zn status of the edible portion of plants is improved by simply spraying a Zn solution onto the crop or through a soil application at a predetermined stage and a proper dose. The concentration of Zn within a wheat grain is genotype-dependent and interacts with the environment, inducing variation in a grain’s concentration of micronutrients. Grain quality parameters are positively correlated with a higher dose of nitrogen in the late reproductive stage. Broadcasting of ZnSO4·7H2O at 62.5 kg ha−1 and foliar application of Zn chelates such as Zn–HEDP (C) at 2 g L−1, Zn–HEDP (L) at 3 g L−1, or a 0.4–0.5% ZnSO4 solution during grain development stage enhanced the growth, productivity, and micronutrients concentration in the edible portion of the plant which further improves the quality of wheat grains and ultimately improves human health in the region. Given the central importance to Zn in cereal-based nutrition, zinc biofortification appears as an innovative technology to alleviate the zinc deficiency in human health, especially on the Indian subcontinent, by applying Zn either as a foliar or soil application.

Global warming - a new global challenge in front of agricultural scientists, affecting almost all the climatic parameters involving air temperature and rainfall intensity and distributions. Elevated levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) viz. carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide etc. are only because of faulty agricultural practices viz. intensive tilling, burning of crop residues, which further adversely affecting both land and water productivity. As per one projection that global surface air temperatures may increase by 4.0–5.8°C in upcoming few decades which offset the likely benefits of increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide on crop plants. Over space and time, new environmental conditions created which might be responsible for frequent droughts, higher temperatures, flooding, salinity, increased carbon dioxide levels, rise in sea-level, irregular rainfall patterns and shifting of pest dynamics etc. Therefore, global warming cycle needs to break down through forestation, using crop residues on soil as mulch or in soils as biochar instead of burning, and adopting certain agricultural practices or developing new plant cultivars which response to CO2 under higher temperature conditions etc which helps to reduces rather mitigate the adverse effects of the global warming. Further, changes in diets, minimum tillage operations and reductions in food wastage will also serve the purpose. The present review highlighted the crucial reasons for global warming, its impacts on agriculture and finally on mitigation strategies, which helps to improve the agricultural productivity and finally livelihoods of the farmers.

The global population is predicted to expand to 9.1 billion by 2050. Countries around the Mediterranean Sea are predicted to achieve a combined population of 529 million by 2025. The current major challenge confronting sustainable agriculture in the Mediterranean region is climate change which has directly affected the extent and frequency of rain events, floods, and droughts, which in turn has influenced land and water productivity and farmers’ livelihoods. The present review highlights the major consequences of climate change for sustainable crop production in the Mediterranean region and evaluates different mitigation strategies for improving agricultural land productivity and water use efficiency along with their impact on farmers’ livelihoods.

In the foothills of the North-West Himalayan region of India, agriculture is the main occupation of the residents. The soil and water resources are becoming the major constraints in agricultural production in the erosion-prone fragile ecosystem of the region. However, due to intensive rains and sloping lands of the region, erosion of the topsoil becoming the major problem for practicing sustainable agriculture in the region, which further dissects the lands, reduces the fertility potentials and land productivities of the region. The root cause of this huge erosion in the region is the intensive rains within a short interval of time on the bare sloping hillsides and handling this problem in both ways could reduce their erosion damage. Socio-economically the farmers are illiterate, poor, and hesitate to adopt innovative techniques of both land and water conservation. All this makes the challenge of reducing erosion losses quite difficult. Farmers in the region do have the skills to manage the problem of soil erosion which they learned from their forefathers and have faith in them. These technologies put together are termed as "Indigenous Technical Knowledge" (ITKs) and these ITKs have helped them a lot for sustainable agriculture in the region. Among different ITKs bunding of field, plowing before monsoon, filter strips, earthing-up in maize, mulching, compression of soil in sugarcane are the important ones for restoring the fertility of soils, reducing erosion losses, improving land productivity, and ultimately livelihoods in the region.

Groundwater and soil potassium deficiencies are present in northern India. Sugarcane is a vital crop in the Indian Punjab; it is grown on approximately 91,000 hectares with an average yield of 80 tonnes ha−1 and a sugar recovery rate of 9.59%. The role of potassium (K) fertilizer under both sufficient and deficient irrigation in ratoon sugarcane crops is not well documented. We conducted a split-plot ratoon cane experiment during 2020–2021 at the Gurdaspur Regional Research Station of Punjab Agricultural University, India, on K-deficient soils. Main treatments were fully irrigated (I1) and water stressed (I0) conditions, with sub-treatments reflecting K fertilizer application rates of 0 (M1), 67 (M2), 133 (M3), and 200 (M4) kg K ha−1. The ratoon sugarcane performance was assessed in terms of growth, productivity, sugar quality and incidence of key insect pests. At harvest, trends in the growth and yield parameters in I1 were improved over the I0 treatment, with cane height (+12.2%), diameter (+3.3%), number of internodes (+5.4%), biomass yield (+7.6%) and cane yield (+5.9%) all higher, although little significant difference was observed between treatments. Ratoon cane yield under irrigation was 57.1 tonnes ha−1; in water-stressed conditions, it was 54.7 tonnes ha−1. In terms of sugarcane quality parameters, measured 12 months after harvesting the initial seed crop, values of Brix (+3.6%), pol (+3.9%), commercial cane sugar percentage (+4.0%) and extractable sugar percentage (+2.8%) were all higher in the irrigated treatments than the water-stressed plot. Irrigated treatments also had a significantly lower incidence of two key insect pests: top borer (Scirpophaga excerptalis) was reduced by 18.5% and stalk borer (Chilo auricilius) by 21.7%. The M3 and M4 treatments resulted in the highest cane yield and lowest incidence of insect pests compared to other K-fertilizer treatments. Economic return on K-fertilizer application increased with increasing fertilizer dosage. Under the potassium-deficient water-stressed conditions of the region of north India, a fertilizer application rate of 133 kg K ha−1 is recommended to improve ratoon sugarcane growth, yield, and quality parameters and economic returns for sugarcane farmers.

In semi-arid tropics, sugarcane yield and quality are affected by deficiencies in soil nutrients, including potassium and calcium. We examined the effects of two different potassium fertilizers, a traditional muriate of potash (MOP) and polyhalite (which contains potassium and calcium), on sugarcane growth, yield, and quality. Experimental treatments compared a control 0 kg K ha−1 (T1) to potassium applied as MOP only at 80 kg K ha−1 (T2) and at 120 kg K ha−1 (T3), and potassium applied as an equal split of MOP and polyhalite at 80 kg K ha−1 (T4) and at 120 kg K ha−1 (T5). Relative to the control the potassium-enhanced treatments had improved rates of key growth parameters, and of cane yields, which were 4.4, 6.2, 8.2, and 9.9% higher in T2, T3, T4,, and T5, respectively, than in T1. Regardless of fertilizer used, potassium applied at 80 kg K ha−1 achieved the highest sugar purity and commercial cane sugar content. All potassium fertilizer treatments had reduced (although non-significant) incidences of three key sugarcane insect pests. The economic benefits of polyhalite were reduced due to its higher cost relative to MOP. Combining MOP and polyhalite equally to achieve an application rate of 80 kg K ha−1 is recommended to enhance sugarcane growth and yield.

A six-year experiment (2009 to 2015) was conducted on sugarcane-based cropping systems in farmers’ fields to examine the effects of precision land leveling (PLL) compared to traditional land leveling (TLL) in terms of soil organic carbon (SOC), greenhouse gas emissions, irrigation water requirements, and system productivity and profitability. Twelve treatments compared different sugarcane sowing regimes and crops in rotation under both PLL and TLL. Spring-sown sugarcane grown in rotation with rice, potato, and wheat under PLL had the highest production (89.7 kg ha−1 day−1) and required 142 cm irrigation water, which was 35.1% less water than a commonly practiced cropping system with late-sown sugarcane grown in rotation with rice and wheat only under TLL). Cropping systems established under PLL had higher land use efficiency (ranging between 64.9 and 86.2%), higher energy productivity (90.7 to 198.6 GJ ha−1), and lower greenhouse gas emissions (5249.33 to 944.19 kg CO2 eq ha−1 year−1) than those under TLL. As well, treatments under PLL had increased levels of SOC, particularly in the upper soil layers, relative to SOC in treatments under TLL. Combining PLL with diversification of crops in sugarcane cropping systems has the potential to sustainably increase farmers’ land productivity and profitability while improving soil health and reducing irrigation requirements. These benefits are likely to have applications in other sugarcane-based cropping systems in similar agro-ecologies.

Sugarcane on one side considered important for crop diversification and important for human civilization while on other sugar industry is facing a long term losses in terms of monetary issues. Moreover, farmer is also not clear about which techniques is to adopt for practising the sugarcane cultivation for precision farming. Therefore, range of new sugarcane cultivation technologies pertaining to its cultivars, fertilization, weed control, insect-pest and disease control needs to be invented and recommended to the cane farmers. Precision farming is an approach where inputs are utilised in precise amounts to get increased average yields, compared to traditional cultivation techniques. Adoption of precision agriculture in sugarcane has been slow due to a wide range of uncertainties and conflicting opinions. There is need to reduce cost of cultivation and to improve the canes yield and quality by adopting precision sugarcane techniques. In developing countries like India, Pakistan etc. precision agricultural techniques if adopted, is a powerful tool and should be started with a basic, affordable and effective integration of technologies and practices. Present article aims to review published and unpublished information on precision sugarcane farming must be applied for improving the cane yield and quality so as to improve livelihoods of the cane farmers.

Intensively cultivated rice-wheat cropping sequence of Punjab, India responsible for many sustainability issues viz. declining underground water, declining soil health, arising micro-nutrient deficiencies etc. Around 1.3 M ha-m additional withdrawal of water from the ground is being taken place annually in Punjab and mainly it is used for the rice crop which is not a traditional crop of the region. Puddling, seepage and percolation losses are the main sources of water loss from the rice based cropping systems in the Indo-Gangetic plains (IGPs) and many Resource Conservation Technologies (RCTs) have been recommended for water saving. The real water saving techniques are those which hinder the water from going into those sinks from where it cannot be reused (Evaporation, E) and diverted greater fraction of water of ET toward transpiration (T) which is desired as greater transpiration, greater the inflow of water and nutrients andwhich ultimately increase the grain yield with the lesser consumption of irrigation water as interval in between two irrigation increases, which further increase the water productivity. Among different RCTs, short duration crop varieties and delaying transplanting time are the real water saving techniques for the regions where water table is already declining down, however other RCTs may be suitable for the regions facing water logging problems as these cut down the drainage losses and these energy saving rather than water saving techniques.

I Intensively practices rice-wheat (R-W) cropping system (RWCS) in South-Asia is suffering from many sustainability issues such as micronutrient deficiencies, labour scarcity, production cost, declining land, declining groundwater level and water productivity along with declining soil health. Climate change further complex the things in one or other way. Therefore, the intervention of climate smart technologies are urgent for improving water productivity in an enormous water use RWCS of South-Asia. Although, farmers are confused regarding picking of suitable climate smart technology (CST) viz., laser land leveling, un-puddled direct-seeded rice (UPDSR), soil matric potential based irrigation, double zero tillage in wheat followed by rice, raised bed planting, short duration cultivars and correct transplantation time, for enhancing their livelihoods through increasing land and water productivity on one side and mitigating global warming consequences on other. Performance of these technologies is both site and situation specific, and care must be taken in practicing them. Most of them cutting down the drainage losses, which further reduces recharging of soil profile which is not required in water stressed regions while these might be termed as energy-saving technologies; otherwise used to withdraw water from the deeper soil depths. These CST are also useful for waterlogged regions. However, CST viz. correct transplantation time and short duration cultivars partition higher fraction of ET water (evapotranspiration) from E (evaporation) to T (transpiration) component which further favour higher grain yields and thus, higher water productivity. Therefore, it is crucial for the introduction of CST for improving agricultural and water productivity in the era of climate change in an enormous water use RWCS of South-Asia.

The current study was carried out at the experimental farm of Rana Sugars Ltd., Buttar Seviyan, Amritsar, Punjab, India, to identify methods to improve the yield and quality of ratoon sugarcane in potassium-deficient soils. The treatments comprised two levels of irrigation, resulting in plants which either received sufficient water (I1) or were water-stressed (I2), and four rates of potassium (K) application: 0 (K1), 40 (K2), 80 (K3) and 120 (K4) kg K2O ha−1. The results showed that the irrigation levels did not influence crop parameters significantly, although all parameters presented higher values for I1-treated plots. Compared to the K1 (i.e., 0 kg ha−1 K fertiliser applied) treatment, the K2, K3 and K4 treatments yielded 11.16, 37.9 and 40.7%, respectively, higher millable canes and 1.25, 5.62 and 13.13% more nodes per plant, respectively. At 280 days after harvest of the first (plant) crop, the I1 treatment provided ratoons which were up to 15.58% higher than those obtained with the I2 treatment, with cane girths up to 7.69% wider and yields up to 7.29% higher than those observed with the I2 treatment. While the number of nodes per plant did not differ significantly between treatments, there were significant differences in other parameters. Quality parameters (with the exception of extraction percentage) were significantly enhanced by the K3 treatment. The benefit-to-cost ratio (B/C) was higher for the I1 treatment than for the I2, due to a reduced productivity associated with the I2 treatment. At both irrigation levels, the K3 treatment resulted in the highest quality parameters. K1-, K2- and K4-treated plots presented more instances of insect infestations than plots receiving the K3 treatment. Relative to the K3 plots, infestation by the early shoot borer (Chilo infuscatellus) was 18.2, 6.0 and 12.2% higher, respectively, in plots that underwent the K1, K2 and K4 treatments, while infestation by the top borer (Scirpophaga excerptalis) was 21.2, 9.21 and 14.0% higher, and that by the stalk borer (Chilo auricilius) was 10.7, 0 and 8.10% higher. Not all infestation differences between treatments were significant. Our research demonstrates that growing sugarcane in potassium-deficient soils with applications of 80 kg K2O ha−1 under irrigation should be recommended to increase yield and quality while minimising insect infestation and to implement sustainable ratoon sugarcane production.

The trace element selenium (Se) is a crucial element for many living organisms, including soil microorganisms, plants and animals, including humans. Generally, in Nature Se is taken up in the living cells of microorganisms, plants, animals and humans in several inorganic forms such as selenate, selenite, elemental Se and selenide. These forms are converted to organic forms by biological process, mostly as the two selenoamino acids selenocysteine (SeCys) and selenomethionine (SeMet). The biological systems of plants, animals and humans can fix these amino acids into Se-containing proteins by a modest replacement of methionine with SeMet. While the form SeCys is usually present in the active site of enzymes, which is essential for catalytic activity. Within human cells, organic forms of Se are significant for the accurate functioning of the immune and reproductive systems, the thyroid and the brain, and to enzyme activity within cells. Humans ingest Se through plant and animal foods rich in the element. The concentration of Se in foodstuffs depends on the presence of available forms of Se in soils and its uptake and accumulation by plants and herbivorous animals. Therefore, improving the availability of Se to plants is, therefore, a potential pathway to overcoming human Se deficiencies. Among these prospective pathways, the Se-biofortification of plants has already been established as a pioneering approach for producing Se-enriched agricultural products. To achieve this desirable aim of Se-biofortification, molecular breeding and genetic engineering in combination with novel agronomic and edaphic management approaches should be combined. This current review summarizes the roles, responses, prospects and mechanisms of Se in human nutrition. It also elaborates how biofortification is a plausible approach to resolving Se-deficiency in humans and other animals.

Both rice and wheat in the “rice-wheat cropping systems” (RWCS) of South Asia and China feed more than 3.1 billion people. It is the most productive and vital agricultural systems worldwide to meet the food safety of the growing population. Although the RWCS have great concern for food security, however, one of the foremost complications in the systems is that soils are puddled with repeated tillage by the traditional way for transplanting rice seedlings which lead to alteration in soil physical and chemical properties. Besides these, repeated tillages for puddling create a hard plow pan layer at the root zone of the rice plant that creates poor infiltration and waterlogging for the next dry season crop particularly wheat. Farmers in the systems generally use excessive synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for getting higher yield for both rice and wheat. As a result, repeated tillage and also imbalance application of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides increase the production cost as well as influence greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. Since the systems have several hostile effects on the environment due to traditional farming, it is already confirmed that the systems are the key source of food production for more than 3.1 billion people in the countries of South and Southeast Asia. Therefore, it will not be a wise decision to replace the system from the regions. In the meantime, researchers have recommended numerous advanced technologies in the RWCS for sustainable rice and wheat production. The chapter discusses cost-effective and ecological-friendly technologies for RWCS of South Asia for food and environmental security.

Degradation of land and deterioration of the environment are two major problems in agriculture. Scientists recently warned that 24 billion tons of fertile soils are being lost in every year, largely due to unsustainable agriculture practices. It is estimated that about 25% of the total global land area has been degraded resulting in substantial economic impacts on agricultural livelihoods and national economies, especially in the lower-income countries. If this trend continues, 95% of the Earth’s land area will be degraded by 2050. Soil salinity is considered as the most important abiotic stress, which is responsible for land degradation particularly in arid and semi-arid regions, leading to cause a major challenge to sustainable agriculture. To deal with saline soils and minimize crop loss, new salt-tolerant crop plants developed through classical breeding and genetic engineering have been considered. Besides, several lines of evidence indicate that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) promote plant growth and enhance salinity tolerance by employing various mechanisms including enhanced nutrient acquisition by AMF-colonized plant roots. This chapter covers the occurrence of AMF in saline soils and effect of salinity on the AMF colonization, hyphal length and sporulation both in vivo and in vitro. It also covers literature relating to the alleviation of salt stress by AMF and its beneficial effects on growth and modulation of biochemical, physiological and molecular mechanisms in the host plants to tolerate salt stress. The chapter also overviewed areas where more investigations are required to gain a thorough understanding of the different mechanisms AMF symbiosis to protects plants from salt stress.

In South Asian countries huge population pressure, foster urbanization and industrialization lead to dwindle the agro-ecological resources like land, water, agroforestry, human and climatic stability. Agricultural intensification has been accompanied by a set of innovations, collectively referred to as the Green Revolution, which has increased food production significantly. However, the intensification poses a major threat to the physical environment such as the loss of natural resources, genetic diversity, land degradation and non-judicious application of water and nutrient. Recent evidence recommends that ecological intensification (EI) of distinctive agriculture particularly in rice-based cropping systems of South Asia can preserve the food production in addition with environmental welfares. Since EI of sustainable agriculture could organize the precise constituents of biodiversity and can be used to either balance synthetic-input as well as expand the productivity without adverse effect on agricultural production. Besides, it is also reported that the performance of organic and agro-ecological farming system is much better in case of ecosystem services relevant to climate change, carbon sequestration from a soil depth of 30 cm and other parameters like soil water holding capacity, etc. Therefore, scientists and policymakers consequently and progressively have emphasized the welfares of ecological-intensifying agriculture to a sociable way towards food, nutritional, environmental and livelihood security by assisting biodiversity and enhance the ecosystem services. This chapter highlights the available agro-ecological resources for improving crop productivity to obtain the goal of sustainable agricultural intensification without negotiating the agricultural outputs.

Global population is increasing at an alarming rate, need to produce more food grains with the shrieking infinite natural resources, and water security is a major problem on the planet. In the agriculture various level of water pollution due to urbanization, industrialization, changing dietary habits, higher trends of food wastage, etc., its management is a need of hour. In the present scenario reducing the water footprint (WF) for the future generation is a key factor for the society welfare and sustainability on the planet, and agriculture is a big sector that is exploiting the quality water on the earth. There is an urgent need to focus on the ecofriendly water saving approaches with efficient use in the agricultural systems. Rice–wheat cropping system (RWCS) is covering a major area ~12.5 Mha in South Asia; it is using a huge amount of water compared to the other agriculture systems. Scientists across the region are working for reducing the share of the WFs in agriculture and in this regard, many technologies known as resource conservation technologies (RCTs) are advocated in the region. Among different RCTs—laser land levelling (LLL), short duration cultivars, timely transplanting of rice, irrigation scheduling through tensiometers, direct seeding of rice, crop diversification, raised bed planting, mechanical transplanting are the main technologies recommended for the RWCS. Hence, these technologies are not universally effective in reducing the WFs, hence, their proper selection at farmer’s fields in their conditions is a must for reducing the WFs. Further, among all, only two, viz., short period cultivars and appropriate transplanting reduce the drainage (which could be reused) share instead of reducing the share of evaporation (which cannot be reused). Further, as evaporation reduced its reduced share diverted to transpiration which further improves the nutrient inflows and finally yields. This chapter is focused on the integrated invented, tested approaches, those are recommended for the south Asian farmers’, and practicing in the rice-based cropping systems. It can help in reducing the WF to improve the land and water productivity for their livelihoods security.

The global population are approaching to 10 billion by the year 2050, therefore to encounter the food security of the increasing population it has been anticipated that production of food must be improved by 70%. Despite more food production and increasing the poverty level are the foremost difficulties to fulfil the nutrition and food demand for the emerging world. At the same time, climate change creates a great barrier to improve agricultural productivity. It has been recognized and proved that traditional agricultural practices do not reduce the rural poverty and degradation of the ecosystem. Food production systems are not always environmentally friendly and cost-benefit depends on imbalanced use synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Therefore, it is indispensable to expand environmentally friendly technologies for sustaining crop yield. Earlier evidence proved that under the future changing climate, the food demand for the growing people across the globe can be only attained through the management of agroecology; since it emphasizes on resource conservation farming practices, reworking small farm enterprises, the participation of more farmers, traditional knowledge of the farming community, improved plant genetic multiplicity, and avoid to use of imbalanced synthetic pesticides and manures. The chapter focuses on the sustainable agroecological based crop production systems without hindering the agroecological environment for the nourishment of the growing population particularly in emerging nations of South Asia under changing climate.

Root architecture in soils is directly affecting crop yield potential, through influencing the moisture potential of soil and its balance components, as only transpiration share is useful for them. Soil moisture potential responsible for the soil moisture curves on the basis of differential energy states is quite important. Generally, a soil moisture flow rate is considered for its kinetic energy. Consequently, soil moisture energy state is defined by its equivalent potential energy, which is by virtue of its place in a force field which could assist to improve the water-use efficiency. Irrigation water losses significantly occur under the flood irrigation through evaporation, seepage, and drainage. While the soil moisture potential declines with help of the tensiometer, and significantly save the irrigation water. For evaluating the performance of any resource conservation technologies (RCT) in the region, estimation of the evapotranspiration (ET) is very important to analyze the effect of the RCT. It is also helpful in balancing the nutrient inflows in the plants through roots, which results to the improvement of land and water productivity. Hence, delineation of the soil moisture potentials and moisture balance components is important to improve the land as well as water productivity; it makes the livelihood security better in the water-stressed regions on the globe. This chapter deals with the methodological part of soil moisture potentials and moisture balance components, which is useful for the policymakers, modelers, scientists, students, and teachers engaged in the irrigation experiments under texturally divergent soils.

Field experiments were conducted to establish precision N management technology for nitrogen (N) topdressings in Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) along with the quantification of nitrous oxide emissions from the soil. The treatments consisted of five fixed N rates (0, 60, 90, 120 and 150 kg N ha−1 applied in two split doses) and eight site-specific N management (SSNM) treatments of applying different N rates at 40 days after sowing (DAS) and the application of leaf colour chart (LCC)-guided 30, 45 or 60 kg N ha−1 at 55 DAS only in four treatments and at both 55 and 85 DAS (first flowering and boll formation stages) in the remaining four treatments. A higher R2 value between the total N uptake and the leaf N concentration at 85 DAS than at 55 DAS strongly suggested that fertilizer N management based on leaf N concentration measured in terms of LCC scores led to an adequate total N uptake resulting in a respectable yield. Topdressings of 45 to 60 kg N ha−1 at 40 DAS and an LCC-based application at 55 DAS produced seed cotton yields on a par with the addition of 150 kg N ha−1 based on a soil test basis along with an improved recovery and agronomic efficiency use, and remarkably lowered the nitrous oxide emissions as estimated using the CCAFS (Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security)-Mitigation Option Tool.

Present investigations were carried out in rice-wheat cropping sequence as a whole including the intervening period under divergent establishment methods from 2012-14 at experimental farm of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab. Treatments included tillage in wheat viz. zero (ZTW) and conventionally tilled wheat (CTW) - main followed by establishment methods viz. direct seeded rice (DSR) and mechanically transplanted rice (MTR) - sub while tillage in rice viz. puddle (PTR), conventionally tilled (CTR) and zero tilled rice (ZTR) - sub-sub plot. Mini-lysimeters were used for delineating the evaporation trends which found to be fast, low cost, reliable and accurate. During rabi seasons, CTW plots evaporated 15.8 and 3.0% faster respectively, as compared to the ZTW plots. CTW plots during 2012-13 evaporated 7% higher than during 2013-14 while ZTW plots evaporated with almost same pace during both the years. After rabi season during intervening period, ZTW plots evaporated 6.8 and 13.6% faster than the CTW plots during 2012-13 and 2013-14, respectively. During rice seasons, among pure tillage system, zero tilled plots viz. ZTWDSRZT evaporated 21.7 and 22.2% faster than CTWDSRCT plots during rice 2013 and 2014, while coming over to the mixed tillage systems, CTWDSRZT evaporated 36.7 and 18.4% faster than the ZTWDSRCT plots. The results from this and other studies suggest that mulching suppress the evaporation losses which further improves the water use efficiency and finally land productivity of the rice-wheat sequence in the region.

Despite significant progress in increasing agricultural production, meeting the changing dietary preferences and increasing food demands of future populations remain significant challenges. This is especially the case in developing countries. Climate change and variability, unstable markets, and shrinking arable land resources that result from urbanization and industrialization represent additional challenges. In many countries – especially those with dense populations and/or diverse ecosystems in need of conservation – expanding agriculture to new lands to increase production is not an option. Conversely, where farmers’ practices result in land degradation and deterioration of soils and natural resources upon which future productivity depends, urgent research and policy attention is needed to arrest and reverse declines in land degradation and adverse soil quality in consideration of mounting global demands for agricultural goods. This chapter provides a synopsis of agricultural land degradation issues while providing potential solutions to reverse soil quality decline through an understanding of integrated land management practices. In addition to methodologically describing the impacts of land degradation on agricultural productivity, the chapter provides up-to-date information for the specialists in the fields of agricultural development, soil science, topography, economics, and ecological management. Options for appropriate policy frameworks to mitigate the degradation of agricultural land at the international, regional and national levels are discussed and proposed.

Grain legumes are rich in carbohydrate, protein, vitamin, mineral, fiber, and essential amino acids. Besides, legumes play a vital role in fixing atmospheric nitrogen (N) which ultimately improves soil fertility through the symbiotic process. However, in the changing climate, the sustainability of grain legumes production is vulnerable due to the extreme events of abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, heat stress, and heavy metals. These abiotic stresses are linked with the physiological, biochemical, and morphological changes that prevent the full genetic potential productivity of the legume crops. Plants need an ample amount of mineral nutrients (micro-and macronutrients) in each stage of the development to achieve maximum yield. Among these mineral nutrients, macronutrients, particularly N, phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) and micronutrients particularly iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), silicon (Si), and selenium (Se) involve in several physiological, biochemical, and morphological processes in plants. These nutrient elements also play a vital role in increasing plant resistance to environmental stresses. An adequate balance of nutrient supply is needed for each stage of the development and to achieve maximum yield potential of legume crops. While imbalanced use of mineral nutrients may result in negative impacts on environmental and also increase the cost of production. Therefore, adequate balanced mineral nutrient management is necessary for the sustainable production of legume crops under the changing climate. This chapter described the negative impacts of abiotic stresses on legumes under the family Fabaceae and also highlighted the essential roles of balanced mineral nutrients in each developmental phage of plants for attaining maximum yield even under the abiotic stressful environment.

SUMMARYThe resource conservation technologies (RCTs), being advocated for countering the threat to the sustainability of wheat–rice cropping system (RWCS) in the north–west (NW) Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) of India, have been evaluated mostly for the individual crops, without depicting the impact of these technologies on the succeeding or preceding crop. A study was thus conducted during 2012–2014 in NW India to assess the land and irrigation water productivity (WPI) of RWCS under different establishment and conservation tillage techniques in a sandy-loam soil (coarse loamy, calcareous, mixed, hyperthermic Typic Ustochrept). The treatments included zero (ZTW) and conventional (CTW) tillage in wheat as main plot, establishment methods (direct seeded (DSR) and mechanically transplanted rice (MTR)) as sub-plot and tillage in rice viz. puddle (PR), dry (CTR) and zero (ZTR) tillage as sub–sub plot treatments, replicated thrice in split–split plot design. The land productivity of RWCS was significantly lower in ZTW plots than in CTW plots. The residual effect of tillage in wheat on rice productivity was distinct during the second year of study, when the CTW plots recorded significantly higher (17.5%) rice yield than the ZTW plots. The productivity of the cropping system with DSR was statistically similar to that with MTR. The WPI of RWCS increased in the order ZTW–DSR–ZTR25 < CTW–DSR–ZTR < ZTW–MTR–CTR < ZTW–DSR–PR < CTW–DSR–PR < ZTW–MTR–PR26 < CTW–MTR–PR.