Improvement of cereal-based cropping systems following the principles of conservation agriculture under changing agricultural scenarios in Bangladesh

Abstract

a b s t r a c tIn the Eastern Gangetic Plains of Bangladesh, the cropping systems are predominantly rice based, having large yield gaps in farmers' fields because of poor management practices adopted by farmers. The increasing scarcity of resources (water, labor and energy) and production costs further make the ricebased cropping system less sustainable and less profitable. We hypothesized that integrating the best compatible cropping patterns accompanied by best management practices into the portfolio of farmers' own technologies would improve system productivity, resource use efficiency and economic profitability. To test this hypothesis, we evaluated four cropping system scenarios (S1-S4) designed to be adapted to current and future drivers of agricultural changes and varying from each other in best management practices (BMPs) and conservation agriculture (CA) principles (tillage and crop establishment, residue management, and crop rotation). Four cropping system scenarios were (i) current farmers' practice (S1), (ii) BMPs with conventional tillage and farmers' crop rotation (S2), (iii) BMPs with reduced tillage and farmers' crop rotation (S3), and (iv) BMPs with reduce or zero tillage and crop diversification (S4). Scenario 2 alone compared with S1 increased system productivity (24-33%), total water productivity (16-50%) and net economic returns (85-169%), and decreased specific energy (11-17%). The combination of BMPs in S2 with reduced tillage and manual or mechanical transplanting (S3) did not further increase yield and save water. Crop diversification with potato in place of Boro rice and intensification with maize or mungbean in between Boro and Aman rice (S4) yielded 1.9-3.7 times higher net economic returns than S1. Results of a three-year study indicated that farmers' productivity and economic returns can be improved by BMPs, which not only increase crop yields but also improve the efficiencies of resources such as water and energy.

Agronomic improvements can make future cereal systems in South Asia far more productive and result in a lower environmental footprint

“…Thus, the higher soil moisture retention throughout the growing season with CA (Thierfelder et al ., ) explains the greater response of dry‐season crops to CA as observed in our study. On the other hand, in lowlands where soils remain submerged because of monsoon rains, CA components, especially no‐till and residue retention, have not always worked (Alam et al ., ). Because of this reason, most often, the practice of all three CA components (zero or reduced tillage, soil cover using crop residues, and crop rotations) in their totality is not feasible and therefore often not all CA components are integrated in farmers’ existing management portfolios in all crop rotations and locations.…”

“…After the harvest of the cover crop, the entire experimental area was leveled (zero gradient) using a laser‐equipped drag scraper (Trimble ™ , Sunnyvale, CA, USA) with an automatic hydraulic system powered by a 60‐HP tractor. The details of all the field operations and crop management, including land preparation, tillage, variety, crop establishment (seed treatment, seeding or transplanting, seed rate, sowing or transplanting time), fertilizer management, water management, and pest management for all the crops under each scenario can be found elsewhere (Gathala et al ., ; Laik et al ., ; Alam et al ., ).…”

“…The following broad groups of parameters were considered as follows: outputs (productivity, economic returns), inputs (water, photosynthetically active solar radiation, fertilizer N, labor, energy), and GWP. Details of various measurements and calculations of efficiencies are provided elsewhere (Gathala et al ., ; Laik et al ., ; Alam et al ., ) except for the accounting of energy and quantification of GHG (CH 4 and N 2 O) emissions and GWP, which are provided below. Using the primary parameters (outputs and inputs), various efficiency parameters (secondary) were calculated (Table ).…”

Impact of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies on Winter Wheat and Cropping System Performance across Precipitation Gradients in the Inland Pacific Northwest, USA

“…Heterogeneous topography also challenges nutrient management due to significant variability in plant-soil-nutrient interactions and crop performance (Fiez et al, 1994(Fiez et al, , 1995 with opportunities for site specific N fertilizer management to mitigate differences in water and N use efficiencies across the landscape (Miao et al, 2011). A combination of these alternative cropping system strategies may increase productivity and economic returns (Tanaka et al, 2002;Alam et al, 2015;Babu et al, 2016), and multiple strategies may be needed (Kirkegaard and Hunt, 2010;Snapp et al, 2010).…”

A New Dryland Development Paradigm Grounded in Empirical Analysis of Dryland Systems Science

“…Traverse is largely supported by integrated modelling, participatory and learning approaches in the literature (e.g. Alkemade et al, 2013;Alam et al, 2015;Ladha et al, 2016). These extend beyond single spatial scales and provide decision makers with information over multiple time frames, aiding development planning (Stringer et al, 2014).…”