A field investigation on direct seeded rice (DSR) was carried out in the two consecutive rice growing seasons of 2017 and 2018 at Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India for the development and validation of soil test crop response (STCR) to fertilizer and for assessing the performance of STCR-treatments as compared to the general recommended dose (GRD) in terms of yield, nutrient uptake and use efficiency, and the economics of DSR. For producing 1 Mg of rice-grain, the required nutrients (N, P, and K) were 2.01 kg, 0.44 kg, and 3.06 kg; the contribution from the soil was 22.05%, 37.34%, and 41.48%; from applied farmyard manure 23.25%, 28.34%, and 16.80%, from fertilizer 38.08%, 49.93%, and 252.98%; and from fertilizer with FYM 44.83%, 60.57%, and 278.70%; for N, P, and K, respectively. The STCR approach, with or without FYM, at both the target yields (4.5 Mg ha⁻¹ and 5.0 Mg ha⁻¹) markedly enhanced the grain yield (20.2% to 32.3%) and production efficiency over the GRD. It also exhibited a higher NPK uptake and use efficiency, along with better profitability, than the GRD. Therefore, the STCR-targeted yield approach could improve the yield, economics, and efficiency of nutrient use for direct seeded rice.

Although nitrogen (N) is the most limiting nutrient for agricultural production, its overuse is associated with environmental pollution, increased concentration of greenhouse gases, and several human and animal health implications. These implications are greatly affected by biochemical transformations and losses of N such as volatilization, leaching, runoff, and denitrification. Half of the globally produced N fertilizers are used to grow three major cereals—rice, wheat, and maize—and their current level of N recovery is approximately 30–50%. The continuously increasing application of N fertilizers, despite lower recovery of cereals, can further intensify the environmental and health implications of leftover N. To address these implications, the improvement in N use efficiency (NUE) by adopting efficient agronomic practices and modern breeding and biotechnological tools for developing N efficient cultivars requires immediate attention. Conventional and marker-assisted selection methods can be used to map quantitative trait loci, and their introgression in elite germplasm leads to the creation of cultivars with better NUE. Moreover, gene-editing technology gives the opportunity to develop high-yielding cultivars with improved N utilization capacity. The most reliable and cheap methods include agronomic practices such as site-specific N management, enhanced use efficiency fertilizers, resource conservation practices, precision farming, and nano-fertilizers that can help farmers to reduce the environmental losses of N from the soil–plant system, thus improving NUE. Our review illuminates insights into recent advances in local and scientific soil and crop management technologies, along with conventional and modern breeding technologies on how to increase NUE that can help reduce linked N pollution and health implications.

The study was conducted to assess the long-term effects of predominant land uses on physicochemical properties, nutrient status and their interactions in soils of south-western Punjab representing the semi-arid soils of India. From each site, soil samples of three predominant land use viz. croplands, horticultural lands and uncultivated lands were collected from 0–15, 15–30, 30–60 and 60–90 cm depths. Soils of both croplands and horticultural lands were classified as sandy loam whereas uncultivated lands showed loamy sand texture with relatively higher pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and bulk density (Bd). Greater soil organic carbon (SOC), available nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and micronutrients (Zn, Cu, Fe and Mn) in horticulture might be due to the higher addition of OC and mineral nutrients through the decomposition of leaf litterfall and root deposits over their removal from soils while long-term use of potassic fertilizer raised the available K contents in croplands. Profile study up to 90 cm depicted the largest sequestration of 74.89 Mg C ha⁻¹ under orchards which was 40 and 70% higher than croplands and uncultivated lands respectively. Significant variability in water-stable aggregates (WSA) (R² = 0.5843, p < 0.05) and mean weighted diameter (MWD) (R² = 0.6497, p < 0.01) with SOC indicated better soil stability in horticulture due to the presence of higher SOC. Positive relations of soil available micronutrients with SOC and finer soil particles were supported by the results of correlation, Principal component analysis and dendrogram indicating horticulture as a potent source of available micronutrients. An overall superiority of horticultural land use over the other two land uses in terms of nutrient status and soil stability suggests its inclusion as a positive strategy that could be taken into account in policymaking for maintaining productivity along with the sustainability of the concerned land degradation prone area.

Field experiments were carried out to record the performance of twelve cropping sequences in randomized complete block design with three replications during 2015-16 and 2016-17 at Pantnagar. Different cropping sequences were assessed for fodder and nutrient yields, production and land use efficiency, profitability and soil organic carbon sequestration. Study revealed that hybrid Napier + berseem cropping sequence (CS ) had higher 12 green fodder (185.8%) and dry fodder (306.7%) yields than commonly practiced single cut sorghum + cowpea-oat + berseem-single cut sorghum + cowpea cropping sequence (CS ). This also had significantly higher digestible 1 dry matter (77.3 t ha-1), crude protein (11.4 t ha-1) and mineral (10.0 t ha-1) yields than CS . Production efficiency with 1 this treatment was 1.33 and 0.40 t ha-1 day-1 in terms of green and dry fodder yields, respectively against 0.53 and 0.11 t ha-1 day-1, which was observed in CS . CS was the most profitable cropping sequence showing 285.6, 235.1 1 12 and 222.2% higher net return, B:C ratio and economic efficiency, respectively than commonly followed cropping sequence (CS ). However, CS and CS were at par with respect to soil organic carbon sequestration. So hybrid 1 12 1 Napier + berseem cropping sequence (CS ) could be recommended for Tarai region.

A field experiment was carried out at Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa, Samastipur during Rabi season, 2021–22. The experiment was conducted using a split plot design with three varieties of fodder oat (Kent, JHO-822 and Local) in main-plots and four different sowing dates (15th November, 25th November, 5th December and 15th December) in sub-plots with three replications. The results obtained from the experiment showed that ‘JHO-822’ recorded 9.4 and 29.5% higher green and dry fodder yield than local variety and accumulated the highest meteorological indices (GDD, HTU and PTU) and resulted in the highest HUE and PTUE. Among different micro-environments, seeding on 15th November recorded the highest green and dry fodder yield with substantially greater values of agro-meteorological indices which decreased with advancement of sowing date. Per day delay in sowing resulted in 0.7% decrease in green fodder yield and 1.2% decrease in dry fodder yield.