Agro-technological Options for Scaling up Crop Productivity, Soil Health and Water Footprint in Rice based Cropping System in Sub-humid (Purvanchal) Region of Uttar Pradesh, India: A Review

Rice based production systems in the sub-humid region (Purvanchal) of Uttar Pradesh are traditional, with low yield and low farm income, and they have largely missed out on the benefits of the Green Revolution. To enhance productivity, alleviate environmental and management constraints, and enhance farmers’ income in the rice–wheat cropping system of the sub-humid Purvanchal region, Uttar Pradesh, new approaches that are more productive and sustainable need to be developed. Conservation agriculture (CA) together with best management practices (BMP) used in other parts of the IGP offer potential to be extended in the Eastern IGP. A review study of evaluating a range of approaches for enhancing the productivity and soil health of rice based cropping systems in the Purvanchal U.P. The yields of wheat (2.78–3.07 t ha-1) and rice (4.38–6.52 t ha-1 were recorded with the farmers’ practices, consisting of intensive tillage (wet tillage or puddling in rice and dry tillage in wheat) followed by inefficient crop establishment practices (transplanting in rice and broadcasting in wheat) with complete removal of crop residues. Different agro-technological Options were adopted in this region to increase the productivity and income of the farmers. Avoiding tillage in wheat and including mungbean increased the yields of wheat and the succeeding rice crop by 10–12% and 5–8%, respectively. The yields of wheat and rice increased further by 14–16% and by 10–14%, respectively, with the inclusion of more CA components. Moreover, to include higher cropping intensity and diversification with CA components, 24–26% higher rice equivalent system productivity was attained.