Impact of climate-smart agricultural practices on growth and crop yields of rice (Oryza sativa)-wheat (Triticum aestivum) system in north-western Indo-Gangetic Plains

Abstract

Rice (Oryza sativa L.)-wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production systems are the major contributor to national food security, which became unsustainable with passing of time due to inappropriate management and use of natural resources, inputs and technologies and is further aggravate with climate change induced risks. And if the business as usual in production approaches may not be able to cope up with the projected climate changes effects. Therefore, a multi-location farmer’s participatory strategic research was conducted to evaluate the effects of layering of key technologies, practices and services in varied combinations and compared with business as usual (farmer’s practice) for sustainability of rice and wheat productivity. In our present study, six scenarios: Farmer's practice (FP); Improved FP (IFP) with low intensity of adaptive measures; IFP with high intensity of adaptive measures (IFP-AM); Climatesmart agriculture (CSA) with low intensity of adaptive measures (CSA-L); CSA with medium intensity of adaptive measures (CSA-M); CSA with high intensity of adaptive measures (CSA-H) were compared. The results revealed that CSAPs (CSA-L, CSA-M, and CSA-H) recorded higher plant height, panicles per sq m and biomass accumulation but lesser grains per panicle and 1000-grain weight compared to FP (transplanted rice; TPR). Rice yield was not much influenced under different management scenarios. The unfilled grains per panicle under IFP-AM, CSA-L, CSA-M, and CSA-H were 17, 18, 15 and 14% higher compared to FP. Growth and yield parameters of wheat were recorded higher under CSAPs during all the years. Three years mean, CSA-H, CSA-M and CSA-L recorded 16,14 and 11% higher grain yield compared to that of FP (5.06 q/ha), respectively. Improved farmer’s practices (mean of IFP and IFP-AM) recorded 4% higher yield over FP in all the years. Intensive tillage-based scenarios (FP) showed water stagnation for long period (6 days) due to untimely rainfall (on 2 March 2015 with the amount 98.8 mm) which ultimately turned into lower grain yield but such factors did not influence grain yield under CSAPs. Therefore, our study results suggest that CSA practices should be promoted in dominated RW production region for increasing productivity and climate change mitigation.