Conservation agriculture for carbon sequestration and sustaining soil health

Conservation Agriculture for Carbon Sequestration and Sustaining Soil Health

Conservation Agriculture for Carbon Sequestration and Sustaining Soil Health

Editors J. Somasundaram R.S. Chaudhary A. Subba Rao K. M Hati N.K. Sinha M. Vassanda Coumar

NEW INDIA PUBLISHING AGENCY New Delhi – 110 034

Somasundaram, J., Chaudhary, R.S., Subba Rao, A., Hati, K.M., Sinha, N.K. and Vassanda Coumar, M. Eds. (2014). Conservation Agriculture for Carbon Sequestration and Sustaining Soil Health, Published by New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi, 532 Pages.

NEW INDIA PUBLISHING AGENCY 101, Vikas Surya Plaza, CU Block, LSC Market Pitam Pura, New Delhi 110 034, India Phone: + 91 (11)27 34 17 17 Fax: + 91(11) 27 34 16 16 Email: info@nipabooks.com Web: www.nipabooks.com Feedback at feedbacks@nipabooks.com Š Editors, 2014 ISBN: 978-93-83305-32-2

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Foreword Indian agricultural is under tremendous pressure to feed its teeming millions. The intensive agriculture has ensured the desired level of production but at the expense of severe resource degradation posing threat to future agriculture. Under such deteriorating conditions, there is an urgent need to evolve a holistic approach such as conservation agriculture (CA) to sustain higher crop productivity in the country without deteriorating soil health and quality.

CA is a technology that is in the nascent form. It is a system that is based on minimal soil disturbance, crop residue retention and crop rotation. Retaining and management of adequate amount of crop residues under CA is the key to realize long-term benefits and also to reverse the process of soil degradation. CA has been found to be a major breakthrough in the irrigated areas for sustaining productivity, natural resource base and economic growth of farmers.

Although CA has become an exciting option for farmers to manage the natural resources, less than 1% of farmers have adopted these technologies in the rainfed ecosystems where the challenges to improve soil quality and crop productivity are enormous. There is a need to push CA to the doorstep of the farmers through innovative participatory approaches and on-farm demonstration.

This book with 41 chapters gives a comprehensive understanding of the subject covering different aspects of conservation agriculture as well as the latest development in the area of CA. The importance of socio-economic view point on CA is also included in the book.

I hope this book gives a vivid picture about conservation agriculture, which will be highly useful to researchers/teachers/students.

I congratulate all the editors/authors and Director of the institute for publishing this book.

(A.K. Sikka)

Preface

The mission of increasing food grain production has achieved an increase from 50 Mt during 1950-51 to 257 Mt during 2012-13, through intensification of agriculture with high–yielding varieties, fertilizer application and chemical pest control during and post-green revolution.

Our country has recorded the highest food grain production during 2012-13 and attained self sufficiency in food grain production, under favourable weather conditions those prevailed throughout the year, however, productivity is still low and is stagnating. At present, the agriculture sector accounts for 13.7 per cent of the country’s GDP and employs more than 60 per cent of the labour force.

However, the natural resources like soil and water are under tremendous pressure to produce ‘more food from less land for more people’. India has to produce 350 Mt by 2030 and this can be achieved only through best soil and water conservation practices. But the practices like widespread residue burning in the country coupled with intensive tillage accelerate oxidation of soil organic carbon which is otherwise vital for sustainable soil quality and food production systems. Simultaneously, these losses add to elevated levels of CO2 intoatmosphere, thereby contributing to the greenhouse effect and global warming of the planet. Rising atmospheric concentrations of GHGs like CO2, N2O and CH4 are global threats to the future of human civilization. Agricultural activities around the world contribute about 15-18% to the annual emissions of these greenhouse gases. Research during the past few decades has demonstrated the significant contribution that conservation agricultural systems can have on reducing emission of greenhouse gases, as well as sequestering carbon in soil and efficient utilization of water and nutrients.

Due to rise in fertilizer price and declining native mineral sources, there is an urgent need to re-use surplus crop residues (~140Mt) left in the field. World-wide conservation agriculture (CA) is being adopted on more than 124 m ha area, whereas in India, it is expanded to only about 2-3 million ha. If the total land under CA reaches 3.5 million hectares, the saving in diesel alone would be 120 million litres in addition to savings of water, labour and protection of soil from degradation processes. Crop residue retention through conservation agriculture (CA) is able to revert the soil degradation process like soil erosion, compaction, surface sealing, through the system of raising of crops in rotation without tilling the soil while retaining crop residues (30%) in the soil surface.

viii

Preface

The CA is aimed to conserve, improve and make more efficient use of natural resources through integrated management of available soil, water and biological resources combined with external inputs. It contributes to environmental conservation as well as economically, ecologically and socially sustainable agricultural production. It can also be referred to as “resource efficient or resource effective agriculture� (FAO).

This book comprises 41 chapters dealing various issues, prospects and importance of conservation agriculture practices with respect to Indian conditions. We place on record our sincere thanks to all the authors for their contribution. We want to express our gratitude to Dr. A.K. Sikka, DDG (NRM), ICAR for his constant encouragement. We thankfully acknowledge Dr. A.K.Singh, Former DDG (NRM), Dr. V.N. Sharda, Former Director (CSWCRTI) & Member ASRB and Dr. B. Venkateswarlu Director (CRIDA) for their support and encouragement. We profusely thank NICRA-ICAR for sponsoring a competitive grant component (CGC) project on Conservation Agriculture and DAC, Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) for sponsoring a Model Training Course (MTC) on Conservation Agriculture. Through this, we could generate, collect huge information related to conservation agriculture practices across different regions with special emphasis on rainfed regions.

We hope this book on conservation agriculture will be highly useful to researchers, scientists, students, farmers and land managers for efficient and sustainable management of natural resources.

Editors

Contents

Foreword ............................................................................................................................... v Preface ................................................................................................................................ vii List of Contributors ............................................................................................................ xiii 1.

Conservation Agriculture: Issues and Prospects in Rainfed Regions of India .................... 1 A. Subba Rao and J. Somasundaram

2.

Conservation Agriculture: Biomass Recycling and Nutrient Dynamics ........................... 17 Muneshwar Singh and R.H. Wanjari

3.

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation with Conservation Agriculture in Rice-Wheat System ............................................................................................................ 29 H. Pathak

4.

Crop Residue Management in Relation to Conservation Agriculture ............................... 39 J. Somasundaram, R.S.Chaudhary, N.K. Sinha, M. Vassanda Coumar, H. Pathak, R.R. Simaiya, S.S. Kushwah and A. Subba Rao

5.

Effect of Conservation Tillage on Soil Physical Properties ............................................... 51 K. M. Hati

6.

Diversification of Crop and/or Allied Crop Enterprises in Conservation Agriculture: Why and How? ............................................................................................... 61 K. Ramesh

7.

Soil Water Balance under Cover Crops and Residue Retention for Conservation Agriculture ......................................................................................................................... 71 R. Saha

8.

Weed Management in Conservation Agriculture ............................................................... 83 R.H. Wanjari, Blaise Desouza and R.K.Singh

9.

Resource Conservation Technologies for Sustainable Crop Production in Indo-Gangetic Plains of India .............................................................................................. 93 H.S. Jat, R.K. Yadav, P. Dey and M.L. Jat

10.

Conservation Agriculture for Resource Conservation in North-Western Himalayan Region ............................................................................................................................... 105 N.K. Sharma, B.N. Ghosh, D. Mandal, R.J. Singh and P.K. Mishra

11.

Resource Conservation Technologies for Sustaining Productivity in North-eastern Hilly Eco-systems.............................................................................................................. 127 R. Saha and P.K. Ghosh

x Contents

12.

Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Hill Farming ................................................. 137 Sher Singh, S.C. Panday and J.K. Bisht

13.

Resource Conservation in Rice – Wheat Cropping System under Reclaimed Sodic Soils ...................................................................................................... 157 P. Dey, Ranbir Singh, Sushil Kumar and S.K. Chaudhari

14

Conservation Agriculture in Rice Based Cropping System in Alluvial Plains of Eastern India ...................................................................................................... 171 S.S. Singh and R. Elanchezhian

15.

Resource Conservation Technologies in Relation to GHGs Emission in Different Rice Ecologies in Eastern India ........................................................................ 181 P. Bhattacharyya, A.K. Nayak, K.S. Roy and S. Neogi

16.

Conservation Agriculture in Cotton Production System ................................................. 193 Blaise Desouza

17.

Conservation Agriculture: Limitations and Prospects in Hot Arid Region of India .................................................................................................................. 201 D. K. Painuli

18.

Conservation Agriculture with Trees for Rainfed Agriculture ........................................ 215 J.V.N.S. Prasad and B. Venkateswarlu

19.

Prioritizing Areas for Soil Carbon Sequestration: A Step for Conservation Agriculture .. 225 T. Bhattacharyya, D. K. Pal, R. K. Gupta, P. Chandran, S. K. Ray, C. Mandal, Jagdish Prasad, Dipak Sarkar, P. Tiwary, K. Karthikeyan and B. Telpande

20.

Soil Carbon Sequestration in Rainfed Agriculture .......................................................... 247 Ch. Srinivasa Rao and B. Venkateswarlu

21.

Soil Carbon Management: Conservation Agriculture Perspective .................................. 263 Pramod Jha

22.

Climatic Variability and Climate Change on Soil Organic Carbon Stocks: Its Impact and Mitigation Strategies ................................................................................. 271 A.K. Biswas, M. Mohanty, K.M. Hati, A.K. Misra and A. Subba Rao

23.

Conservation Agriculture in Mitigating Effects of Climate Change................................ 293 M. Mohanty and N.K. Sinha

24.

Soil Carbon for Carbon Sequestration and Trading ......................................................... 303 A.K. Biswas

25.

Conservation Agricultural Management Practices in Minimizing Soil Erosion and Enhancing Crop Productivity ............................................................................................ 313 D. Mandal, B. N. Ghosh, S. Patra and N.K. Sharma

26

Impact of Resource Conservation Technologies for Increasing Crop Productivity in Black Soil Regions of Rajasthan .................................................................................. 329 R. K. Singh, J. Somasundaram and Shakir Ali

27.

Impact of Conservation Tillage on Soil Aggregation ........................................................ 343 N. K. Sinha, J. Somasundaram, R. K. Singh and M. Mohanty

Contents

xi

28.

Climate Resilient Technologies for Mitigating GHGs Emission in Agriculture ............. 357 C.R. Mehta, Reena Nair and Mayuri Gupta

29.

Role of Farm Machinery in Success of Conservation Agriculture .................................. 371 R.C. Singh

30

Evaluation of Conservation Agriculture Machinery on Carbon Emission: A Case Study ..................................................................................................................... 391 K. P. Singh

31.

Soil Biodiversity and Integrated Soil Quality Assessment .............................................. 403 D.L.N. Rao

32.

Soil Microbial Biomass: A Potential Indicator to Assess Soil Quality ............................. 409 M. Vassanda Coumar, S. Kundu, S. Rajendiran, J. Somasundaram and R. R. Simaiya

33.

Soil Biological Parameters as Reflection of Soil Carbon Dynamics and Conservation .............................................................................................................. 419 S.R. Mohanty and K. Bharati

34

Conservation Agriculture vis-a-vis Organic Farming ..................................................... 425 K. Ramesh and A.B. Singh

35.

Biochar: An Alternative to C Sequestration ..................................................................... 437 Brij Lal Lakaria, Pramod Jha and A.K. Biswas

36.

Participatory Soil Quality Assessment Tools ................................................................... 447 R.S. Chaudhary

37.

Assessing Soil Quality Changes under Conservation Agriculture ................................. 459 S.Kundu, M. Vassanda Coumar and S. Rajendiran

38.

Socio-Economic Assessment of Conservation Agriculture in India ................................. 473 Ranjit Kumar

39.

Remote Sensing of Soil Residue Cover and Conservation Tillage ................................... 485 Nirmal Kumar and K. Karthikeyan

40.

Exploring Soil Organisms for SOC Storage .................................................................... 495 M.C. Manna

41

Effect of Crop Cover on Runoff, Soil and Nutrient Losses ............................................... 503 R.K.Singh, J. Somasundaram, R.S. Chaudhary, N. K.Sinha and R.H.Wanjari Annexures ......................................................................................................................... 515

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