Production potentiality and sustainability of rice-based cropping sequences in flood prone lowlands of North Bihar

A field experiment was conducted to find out the most profitable rice based cropping sequence on sandy loam soil of North Bihar under rainfed lowand. Significantly higher rice grain equivalent yield was recorded in rice-lentil-green gram cropping sequence (10.39 t ha⁻¹). Production efficiency was also found highest with rice-lentil-green gram (33.52 kg ha⁻¹ day⁻¹). The maximum total return ha⁻¹ day⁻¹ (102.76) and benefit:cost ratio (2.38) was recorded with rice-lentil-green gram sequence.. The maximum land use efficiency (89.0%) was associated with rice-linseed-green gram. However, rice-pea-green gram cropping sequence achieved the highest energy output (146.85 MJ x 10³ ha⁻¹) with maximum energy use efficiency (4.12) which were significantly superior to rest of the cropping sequences.