Recycling of Crop Residues for Sustainable Soil Health Management: A Review

Burning of crop residues have become a challenging issue for scientist’s community as well as policy makers worldwide as it directly affects environment, soil health and the productivity of crops. Microbial mediated recycling of crop residues into an amorphous dark brown to black colloidal humus like substance under conditions of optimum temperature, moisture and aeration is need of the hour. Crop residue recycling increases sequestration of organic carbon in soil which ultimately leads to improve soil physical, chemical and biological health. Organic carbon acts as a reservoir for nutrients, needed in crop production. Crop residue management recycling is a cost-effective option for minimizing agriculture's input with maximizing output. Besides supplying nutrients to the current crop, their residual effects on succeeding crops in the system are also important. This review emphasizes on crop residue recycling by different techniques. This review paper maybe helpful to the policy makers and researchers.

Potentials of Conservation Agriculture in Vertisols of Madhya Pradesh

The present study aimed to assess the potentials of conservation agriculture in Vertisols of Madhya Pradesh in terms of productivity and economics of cultivation in soybean-wheat cropping system. Vertisols are characterized by more clay content, swell-shrink behavior, high water holding capacity, poor drainage and creaking on drying which results in narrow workability and high erodibility causes soil and nutrients loses, whereas, high CEC and inter-layer spacing in minerals results in fixation of cationic nutrients and nature of self inversion causes low organic carbon content. Potential of different crop establishment method under soybean-wheat cropping system for nutrients recycling through crop residue management was also studied to highlight the importance of crop residue recycling. It is concluded that planting of soybean and wheat on permanent beds and with no-till along with retention of crop residue on surface has been more effective and remunerative.

Effect of integrated use of organic manures and chemical fertilizers on yield, nutrient uptake and nutrient balance in the bush bean - T. Aus - T. Aman cropping patterns

A study was made on integrated nutrient management in the Bush bean −T. Aus −T. Arnan cropping pattern over three years at BRRI Farm, Gazipur (AEZ-28) during 2000-02. Different packages of chemical fertilizers in combination with organic materials (cowdung and rice straw/bush bean stover) were evaluated to find out a suitable combination for obtaining higher yield of crops. There was a positive effect of crop residue recycling and residual effect of cowdung on the yield of the next crops. Both the soil test based fertilizer and the cowdung with IPNS basis fertilizer treatments gave higher pod yield of bush bean. For T. Aus rice, the highest yield was obtained with the treatment where bush bean stover was used along with IPNS based chemical fertilizer. Again the highest yield of T. Aman rice was observed in the residual effect of cowdung with reduced amount of fertilizer. An excess N uptake was recorded where N was added as fertilizer only. The apparent balance (nutrient added through manures and fertilizers minus nutrient removed by crops) for both N and K was negative while that for P & K was mostly positive.Key Words: IPNS; cowdung; rice straw; bush bean; rice; nutrient balance. DOI: 10.3329/bjar.v34i1.5765Bangladesh J. Agril. Res. 34(1) : 157-164, March 2009