Excessive dependence on chemical fertilizers and ignorance to organic and microbial inputs under intensive cropping systems are the basic components of contemporary agriculture, which evolves several sustainability issues, such as degraded soil health and sub-optimal crop productivity. This scenario urges for integrated nutrient management approaches, such as microbes-mediated integrated plant nutrition for curtailing the high doses as chemical fertilizers. Rationally, experiment has been conducted in pigeonpea at ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, with the aim of identifying the appropriate nutrient management technique involving microbial and organic nutrient sources for improved rhizo-modulation, crop productivity, and soil bio-fertility. The randomized block-designed experiment consisted nine treatmentsviz. Control, Recommended dose of fertilizers (RDF), RDF+ Microbial inoculants (MI), Vermicompost (VC), Farm Yard Manure (FYM), Leaf Compost (LC), VC + MI, FYM + MI, and LC + MI.Rhizobiumspp.,Pseudomonasspp.,Bacillusspp., andFrateuria aurantiawere used as seed-inoculating microbes. The results indicated the significant response of integration following the trend VC + MI > FYM + MI > LC + MI > RDF + MI for various plant shoot-root growth attributes and soil microbial and enzymatic properties. FYM + MI significantly improved the water-stable aggregates (22%), mean weight diameter (1.13 mm), and geometric mean diameter (0.93 mm), soil organic carbon (SOC), SOC stock, and SOC sequestration. The chemical propertiesviz. available N, P, and K were significantly improved with VC + MI. The study summarizes that FYM + MI could result in better soil physico-chemical and biological properties and shoot-root development; however; VC + MI could improve available nutrients in the soil and may enhance the growth of pigeonpea more effectively. The outcomes of the study are postulated as a viable and alternative solution for excessive chemical fertilizer-based nutrient management and would also promote the microbial consortia and organic manures-based agro-industries. This would add to the goal of sustainable agricultural development by producing quality crop produce, maintaining agro-biodiversity and making the soils fertile and healthy that would be a “gift to the society.”

Sensor-based decision tools provide a quick assessment of nutritional and physiological health status of crop, thereby enhancing the crop productivity. Therefore, a 2-year field study was undertaken with precision nutrient and irrigation management under system of crop intensification (SCI) to understand the applicability of sensor-based decision tools in improving the physiological performance, water productivity, and seed yield of soybean crop. The experiment consisted of three irrigation regimes [I₁: standard flood irrigation at 50% depletion of available soil moisture (DASM) (FI), I₂: sprinkler irrigation at 80% ET_C (crop evapo-transpiration) (Spr 80% ET_C), and I₃: sprinkler irrigation at 60% ET_C (Spr 60% ET_C)] assigned in main plots, with five precision nutrient management (PNM) practices{PNM₁-[SCI protocol], PNM₂-[RDF, recommended dose of fertilizer: basal dose incorporated (50% N, full dose of P and K)], PNM₃-[RDF: basal dose point placement (BDP) (50% N, full dose of P and K)], PNM₄-[75% RDF: BDP (50% N, full dose of P and K)] and PNM₅-[50% RDF: BDP (50% N, full P and K)]} assigned in sub-plots using a split-plot design with three replications. The remaining 50% N was top-dressed through SPAD assistance for all the PNM practices. Results showed that the adoption of Spr 80% ET_C resulted in an increment of 25.6%, 17.6%, 35.4%, and 17.5% in net-photosynthetic rate (P_n), transpiration rate (T_r), stomatal conductance (G_s), and intercellular CO₂ concentration (C_i), respectively, over FI. Among PNM plots, adoption of PNM₃ resulted in a significant (p=0.05) improvement in photosynthetic characters like P_n (15.69 µ mol CO₂ m⁻² s⁻¹), T_r (7.03 m mol H₂O m⁻² s−¹), G_s (0.175 µmol CO₂ mol⁻¹ year⁻¹), and C_i (271.7 mol H₂O m² s⁻¹). Enhancement in SPAD (27% and 30%) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) (42% and 52%) values were observed with nitrogen (N) top dressing through SPAD-guided nutrient management, helped enhance crop growth indices, coupled with better dry matter partitioning and interception of sunlight. Canopy temperature depression (CTD) in soybean reduced by 3.09–4.66°C due to adoption of sprinkler irrigation. Likewise, Spr 60% ETc recorded highest irrigation water productivity (1.08 kg ha⁻¹ m⁻³). However, economic water productivity (27.5 INR ha⁻¹ m⁻³) and water-use efficiency (7.6 kg ha⁻¹ mm⁻¹ day⁻¹) of soybean got enhanced under Spr 80% ETc over conventional cultivation. Multiple correlation and PCA showed a positive correlation between physiological, growth, and yield parameters of soybean. Concurrently, the adoption of Spr 80% ET_C with PNM₃ recorded significantly higher grain yield (2.63 t ha⁻¹) and biological yield (8.37 t ha⁻¹) over other combinations. Thus, the performance of SCI protocols under sprinkler irrigation was found to be superior over conventional practices. Hence, integrating SCI with sensor-based precision nutrient and irrigation management could be a viable option for enhancing the crop productivity and enhance the resource-use efficiency in soybean under similar agro-ecological regions.

Imbalanced and indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers has been adversely influencing the quality of soil, environment, biodiversity and nutrient status in soil. Conjoint application of bio-inoculants (BI) with organic or inorganic sources of nutrients tweaks nutrient synchrony in soil and improves plant nutrition. With this backdrop an experiment was conducted at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi during 2016–2018. The objectives were to identify the suitable combinations of BI-mediated nutrient sources for higher productivity and profitability in pigeon pea–wheat cropping system (PWCS). The nine pigeon pea treatments; four sole applications viz., recommended dose of fertilizers (RDF), vermicompost (VC), farm yard manure (FYM), leaf compost (LC) and four conjoint applications viz., RDF + BI, VC + BI, FYM + BI and LC + BI and one control were replicated thrice under randomized block design (RBD). However, in succeeding wheat, each of the treatments applied to pigeon pea was further allocated to two levels (50% and 100%) in factorial RBD. Findings exhibit that FYM + BI could result into higher equivalent-system grain productivity (10.4 and 10.8 t ha⁻¹ during 1st and 2nd year, respectively) of PWCS. However, profitability parameters of PWCS were higher with the RDF + BI. Uptake of nutrients (NPK) was significantly higher with FYM + BI in pigeon pea and RDF + BI in wheat. Nutrient harvest index (NHI) did not vary significantly in both the crops. Conclusively, bio-inoculation is more productive and beneficial in general, while, over the various combinations, recommendation of FYM + BI combination could be more productive and sustainable.