Effect of tillage, residue management and crop establishment techniques on energetics, water use efficiency and economics in soybean (Glycine max)–wheat (Triticum aestivum) cropping system

In Indo-Gangetic plains of India, the returns from crop cultivation are shrinking gradually owing to escalation of input costs. Under such situation, conservation agriculture systems have gained importance to make farming profitable by cutting down the variable cost and enhancing resource-use efficiency. The studies were conducted during 2009–10 to 2010–11 on energy relations and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) involving sequential tillage (i.e to skip the tillage either in kharif to soybean or in rabi to wheat) in soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.)–wheat (Triticum aestivum L. emend. Fiori and Paol) system in order to evaluate the performance under sequential tillage. The energy relations viz. input energy, output energy, net energy and energy use efficiency were statistically similar in most of the cases except energy-use efficiency for both soybean and wheat due to different sequential tillage and crop establishment techniques. Residue management treatments significantly influenced the energy relations in both the crops. Wheat + soybean residue recorded highest gross energy (235.9 and 269.9 × 10³ MJ/ha), while the reverse with net energy and energy use efficiency where the no residue (control) obtained 189.0 and 206.4 × 10³ MJ/ha; 8.69 and 10.4 ×10³ MJ/ha respectively during the year 2009–10 and 2010–11 in the soybean-wheat system. IWUE in wheat recorded significantly higher with bed system of crop establishment either adopting conventional tillage-bed (CT-Bed) (209.1 kg/ha-cm) or skipping CT-Bed with zero tillage-bed (ZT-Bed) (312.6 kg/ha-cm) in rabi season during the year 2009–10 and 2010–11, respectively.