Rice single cropping or ratooning agro-system: which one is more environment-friendly?

Abstract

Sustainable development of food production depends on damping the environmental impacts of agricultural production. The aim of this study was to investigate the environmental performance of rice production in single crop and ratooning (main rice + ratoon crop) agro-systems through life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology in Guilan province, Northern Iran, in 2015. The flooding irrigation regime was the dominant irrigation method for single cropping system and main crop rising in ratooning agro-system. The data were gathered through a face to face interview with 215 single crop and 115 ratoon breeder paddy farmers. The environmental risks were determined in six impact categories including global warming, terrestrial eutrophication, acidification, and depletion of fossil fuels, phosphate, and potash resources. The functional unit (FU) was set as 100 kg protein. Results indicated that the CO, NO, and CH emissions of the rice ratooning agro-system (661.44, 1.96, and 5.42 kg 100 kg protein) were less than the corresponding values in the rice single cropping agro-system (1341.63, 2.88, and 9.20 kg 100 kg protein, respectively). Among all the environmental impact categories, the terrestrial eutrophication had the widest negative environmental effect followed by depletion of phosphate resources in single cropping agro-system with weighted indices of 0.51 and 0.41, respectively. Moreover, the terrestrial eutrophication had the largest negative environmental effect followed by acidification in rice ratooning agro-system with weighted indices of 0.48 and 0.29, respectively. Overall, the results highlighted that the rice ratooning ago-system is more environmentally beneficial than the single cropping system, particularly in terms of depletion of fossil fuels, global warming, and depletion of phosphate and potash resources categories. This priority may be improved through adopting proper management of agronomic practices for main and ratoon rice in ratooning agro-system. Graphical abstract ᅟ.

Methane and nitrous oxide emissions from a ratoon paddy field in Sichuan Province, China

“…This result is slightly lower than the measurement reported by Deng et al (2019), in which N 2 O emissions from the RR season varied from 1.61 to 2.34 kg ha −1 . Fortunately, Firouzi, Nikkhah, and Aminpanah (2018) found that N 2 O emission of the rice ratooning system (1.96 kg 100 kg −1 protein) was less than the corresponding rate in the rice single cropping system (2.88 kg 100 kg −1 protein), which is beneficial to the cultivation and popularization of the ratoon cropping system. These different research results show that further research is needed in the future to clarify the extent of N 2 O emissions from ratoon paddy fields.…”

Manipulating osa-MIR156f Expression by D18 Promoter to Regulate Plant Architecture and Yield Traits both in Seasonal and Ratooning Rice

“…Compared to the second seasonal rice cultivation, ratooning rice may significantly decrease the production costs by reducing the input of labor force, fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides [42]. Furthermore, ratooning rice results in better grain quality and less field pollution [42, 43]. Thus the research of ratooning rice is of great significance.…”

Exergy flow of rice production system in Italy: Comparison among nine different varieties

“…There are also some other ways for moving toward a sustainable rice production system. For instance, a study showed rice ratooning is more eco-efficient than the single cropping system (Firouzi et al, 2018). Khoshnevisan et al (2021) indicated that 355% reduction in global warming impact could be achieved under optimal rice-crab co-culture system compared to rice mono-culture.…”