In the face of aggravating environmental challenges, achieving food security while preserving natural ecosystems, the present-day agriculture demands transformative strategies. Intercropping, an age old yet under-recognized practice, offers a promising direction towards sustainable agriculture by elevating biodiversity, optimizing resource use and delivering critical ecosystem services. Intercropping contributes to climate change mitigation by improving soil health and carbon sequestration, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and long-term soil fertility restoration through nutrient cycling. Intercropping system aligns with agroecology principles, integrating biodiversity and ecosystem services into agricultural systems. Intercropping enhances provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural ecosystem services through multiple mechanisms. One of its key advantages is the promotion of biodiversity, which is essential for agroecosystem sustainability. By increasing species richness, intercropping nurtures pollinators, beneficial insects, and microbial communities, ultimately boosting productivity and resilience against environmental stressors. Moreover, intercropping represents an ecologically and economically viable alternative to conventional farming, confronting critical global concerns such as soil degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change. However, challenges such as choosing compatible crops, planning planting patterns, and coordinating harvest schedules pose huge tasks. Research findings on crop combinations, climate-resilient systems, mechanization tools, and region-specific information can help to overcome these issues. The review article focuses on the alignment of an intercropping system with ecosystem services targeting agricultural sustainability.

Micronutrient deficiency in soil and crops is a critical issue that contributes to what is known as hidden hunger. Hidden hunger refers to the lack of essential vitamins and minerals in people diets, often due to the poor nutrient content of staple crops, which can lead to significant health problems despite adequate caloric intake. Micronutrients are required in small amounts but are crucial for various physiological functions in plants, including cereals for enzyme activation, photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation, and synthesis of vital compounds. Corrective measures to address micronutrient deficiencies include soil application, seed treatment, foliar sprays, and genetic biofortification. Foliar sprays are particularly effective as they allow for the direct application of nutrients to plant leaves, ensuring quick absorption and utilization. This method can rapidly correct deficiencies, improve crop yields, and enhance the nutritional quality of the produce. Previous research has shown the efficacy of foliar sprays in addressing micronutrient deficiencies. Additionally, advancements in nanotechnology have led to the development of more efficient foliar spray formulations that enhance nutrient uptake and minimize environmental impact. Overall, addressing micronutrient deficiencies through foliar sprays and other agronomic practices is vital for improving crop health, yield, and nutritional quality, thereby contributing to food security and the alleviation of hidden hunger. However, specific dose of each micro- and beneficial nutrients are highly related to crops and cropping systems, season, agroclimatic conditions, materials used, and crop growth stage. The review article focuses on all issues and concerns with possible options for correcting micronutrient deficiency in cereals to ensure food and nutritional security and agricultural sustainability.

Present-day agriculture is under tremendous pressure due to various factors such as climate change, degradation of soil and water quality, and yield plateauing of major food crops. Under these scenarios, there is an urgent need to choose a climate-resilient and ecologically hardy crop which can perform under adverse conditions with low input requirements. In this regard, millets can be suitable crops for agricultural sustainability. Among various millets, finger millet (Eleusine coracana L. Gaertn) is cultivated mainly in India and Africa. However, most farmers grow finger millet with local cultivars, and improved ones can be replaced to enhance productivity. The present investigation conducted at the Post Graduate Research Farm of Centurion University of Technology and Management, Odisha, focused on evaluating suitable cultivars of finger millet. The study revealed that cultivars significantly influenced finger millet growth, productivity, and economics. The physiological growth parameters, namely, crop growth rate, relative growth rate, net assimilation rate and leaf area duration were significantly influenced by finger millet cultivars. The growing degree days (GDD), helio-thermal units (HTU) and photothermal units (PTU) of the finger millet showed a great variation among the cultivars. The Maximum total GDD (2169 °C day), HTU (18141 °C day hours) and PTU (24297 °C day hours) were recorded in the cultivar Hima(w) VR 936. The cultivars Indravathi VR 1101, Sri Chaitanya VR 847 (1.73) and Hima (W) VR 936 (1.60) were superior to other cultivars in expression of the grain yield and economics of finger millet. The study concluded that the cultivation of Indravathi and Sri Chaitanya could be considered as short-duration cultivars; however, Hima can be chosen as long duration crop for successful finger millet cultivation with higher net returns and benefit-cost ratio under hot and sub-humid regions of Odisha.

Maize (Zea mays L.) is the third most important cereal crop after rice and wheat which is considered a soil-exhaustive crop. The combination of soil exhaustive and replenishing crops in a cropping system is a beneficial approach where legumes can play a vital role in agricultural sustainability. As maize is a widely spaced crop, intercropping legumes can easily be adopted. Based on these facts, an experiment was conducted at P. G. Research Farm of Centurion University of Technology and Management, Odisha during two consecutive Rabi seasons of 2021-22 and 2022-23 where chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and field pea (Pisum sativum L.) were intercropped with hybrid maize by adopting different planting geometry. The mean data of two years revealed that sole maize uniform row (UR) being statistically at par with sole maize paired row recorded the higher plant height and dry matter accumulation of maize than intercropped maize. Sole maize also recorded higher values of yield attributes of maize, namely, number of cobs/plants, number of grains/row and number of rows/cobs which was reflected in the grain yield of maize. Due to inter-species competition, grain yield of maize was reduced in the mixed stand where uniform row sole maize registered the highest grain yield (5857 and 6101 kg/ha, respectively during both years) and it was closely followed by paired row sole maize (5789 and 6005 kg/ha, respectively). Grain and stover yields of legumes, such as chickpea and field pea were higher in pure stand because of its optimum plant stand and devoid of inter-species competition. Moreover, the benefits of the intercropping systems were pronounced in all the intercropping systems laid out in an additive series in terms of land equivalent ratio, relative crowding coefficient, area time equivalent ratio, competitive ratio, maize equivalent yield and monetary advantage. The study revealed that intercropping maize UR + chickpea (1:2) resulted in the highest values of net return and benefit-cost ratio which can be recommended for South Odisha conditions.

Water has a major impact on crop growth, output, and quality and increased production with less water consumption is crucial due to increased demand from domestic and industrial sectors. With evaporative demand-based irrigation scheduling the water consumption gets reduced and improves water productivity. The type of soil, growing season, weather, and crop type affect specific crops' water needs. To compute crop water requirement, irrigation requirement, and its schedule for groundnut cultivated during the rabi season in south Odisha, India, the FAO CROPWAT 8 program was used, with the meteorological data of Centurion University, Paralakhemundi, and NASA power. The water requirement for groundnut was 362.1 mm, the irrigation requirement for groundnut crops was 323.7 mm, and crop evapotranspiration (ETc) was 373.4 mm during rabi season. At 50% critical depletion of soil moisture and soil replenishment to field capacity, the yield did not decrease. These results indicate that irrigation schedules can be practiced for different regions' crops without experimental results by estimating crop water requirements and irrigation schedules obtained through the FAO CROPWAT 8 model.

The globe faces food security difficulties because of population increase and resource degradation, both worsened by climate change. Applying chemical fertilizer along with cereal-based cropping systems degrades soil health with respect to physical, chemical, and biological properties, which also results in low crop land productivity. However, adopting legume-based cropping systems with integrated nutrient management provides an appropriate way to reach Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Hence, a field trial was conducted on groundnut in 2018 and 2019 at the Post Graduate Research Farm, M.S. Swaminathan School of Agriculture, Paralakhemundi, Odisha, India. The experiment was laid out in a Factorial Randomized Block Design (FRBD) with two factors as seed inoculation (solid carrier-based Rhizobium (SR) and liquid carrier-based Rhizobium (LR)) and nutrient management (N1: 100% N (fertilizer), N2: 75%N (fertilizer) + 25% N (FYM), N3: 50%N (fertilizer) + 50% N (FYM), N4: 25% N (fertilizer) + 75% N (FYM) and N5: 100% N (through farmyard manure, FYM) in ten treatment combinations and replicated thrice. The result revealed that seed inoculation with SR and LR showed an almost similar trend in root length, dry weight and nodule, post-harvest soil pH, organic carbon and Rhizobium population in the soil in both years, which remained statistically at par. However, SR showed the highest value for root growth. Among nutrient management, 100% N (through inorganic fertilizer) recorded the highest root length (11.72, 19.75 and 23.9 cm) and dry weight (0.394, 1.075 and 1.141 cm) at 30, 60 and 90 days after sowing (DAS) respectively. Further, in the pooled data, the interaction effect of seed inoculation and nutrient management significantly impacted both root length and root dry weight. The nutrient management treatment and interaction effect of both factors, seed inoculation and nutrient management, significantly influenced soil organic carbon % and Rhizobium population. The highest and equal value of organic carbon in the soil (0.46%) was recorded from NM3, NM4 and NM5 and the highest Rhizobium population (64.5 x 106 CFU g-1 soil) from 100% N (FYM). The results concluded that integrated nutrient management positively impacted groundnut root growth and post-harvest soil properties. The results concluded that integrated nutrient management positively impacted groundnut root growth and post-harvest soil properties. Integration of Rhizobium as seed inoculation, fertilizer, and organic manure (FYM) influenced soil properties and root growth, enhancing crop productivity.