The impending crisis for food production is the biggest threat to sustenance of soil resources due to industrial farming practices adopted by multitudes of farmers on all parts of the world inclusive of the Southern Telangana Zone (STZ) in India. This can extensively degrade the soil if not substituted by soil resource-saving agricultural systems. This present experiment is implemented to assess the impact of contrasting tillage practices and weed management practices on soil nutrient stratification ratio (SR), carbon sequestration rate (CSR), carbon management indices (CMI), carbon retention efficiency (CRE) and monitor the grain yield of maize after three-years in CA with a cotton-maize-Sesbania rostrata cropping system. Three tillage practices (main-plots) included the T₁:Conventional tillage with cotton- Conventional tillage with maize- fallow i.e., No Sesbania rostrata (Farmers’ practice), T₂:Conventional tillage with cotton- Zero tillage with maize- Zero tillage with Sesbania rostrata and T₃: Zero tillage with cotton + Sesbania rostrata residues- Zero tillage with maize + Cotton residues- Zero tillage with Sesbania rostrata + Maize stubbles. Weed management tactics (Sub plots) were W₁: Chemical weed control, W₂: Herbicide rotation, W₃: Integrated weed management and W₄: Single hand-weeded control. Sampling of the soil in the 0 − 15 and 15–30 cm, subsequent to harvesting of maize was analyzed for pH, EC, soil macronutrient’s availability, soil organic carbon (SOC), and computed for soil nutrients SR, CSR, CMI and CRE duly following the standard analytical procedures. The results indicated that in the 0–15 cm, 15.3% of SOC, 15.1% of available soil N, 19.6% of available soil P and SR of 1.20 for SOC were higher under T₃ relative to T₁. Similarly, 58.1% of cumulative CSR, 58.8% of CRE in the 0–30 cm, and 30.3% of CMI in the 15–30 cm were higher under T₃ compared to T₁. The passive pool of carbon (C_PSV) was the dominant contributor of SOC to total SOC in the 0–30 cm soil layer. The T₃ had higher Kernel yield (11.6%) in comparison T₁. Kernel yield was also 23.4–43.1% higher under W₁, W₂, W₃ over W₄. These findings suggest that adoption of zero tillage (ZT) with crop residue retention (T₃), IWM and chemical weed control/ herbicide(s) could be a viable solution for improving the soil health and contributing towards enhanced crop productivity in cotton-maize-Sesbania rostrata cropping system in this zone.

Intensive agriculture is the chief cause of soil degradation, particularly in regions with low soil organic carbon status, such as semi-arid southern India. In the quest to attain sustainable yield and improved soil quality, conservation agriculture (CA) is being advocated and adopted globally, including in India. In this experiment, CA was implemented to investigate the synergistic impacts of tillage and weed management on soil quality index and system yield and to identify a remunerative treatment combination that can sustain system yield and enhance soil quality. Contrasting tillage practices (main plots) included the T₁: conventional tillage with cotton–conventional tillage with maize–fallow, i.e., no Sesbania rostrata (Farmers’ practice), T₂: conventional tillage with cotton–zero tillage with maize–zero tillage with Sesbania rostrata and T₃: zero tillage with cotton + Sesbania rostrata residues–zero tillage with maize + cotton residues–zero tillage with Sesbania rostrata + maize stubbles. Weed management tactics (sub-plots) were W₁: chemical weed control, W₂: herbicide rotation, W₃: integrated weed management and W₄: single hand-weeded control in a split-plot design with cotton–maize–Sesbania cropping system over 3 years, in a split-plot design. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed using the soil quality index (SQI)-CAL Version 1.0 software tool to extract minimum datasets from measured soil properties. A total of 40 soil variables were analyzed at 60 DAS and after the maize harvest, then subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) and subjected to PCA in soil quality index (SQI)-CAL software as to choose variables, minimum dataset and obtain soil quality index. The following soil properties, soil organic carbon (SOC), silt fraction, available soil zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), potassium (K), nitrogen (N), pH, electrical conductivity (EC), soil carbon to nitrogen (C:N) and cation exchange capacity (CEC), were selected as indicators based on correlations, calculated PCA and adept opinions on texture and lime concretions of experimental soil. The soil quality index improved by 23.34% in the T₃W₄ compared to T₁W₁. The system yield was 51.79% higher with the adoption of T₃W₃ compared to T₃W₄ combinations. Therefore, considering both system yield and soil quality index, T₃ and W₃ were remunerative and the best treatment combination among all others to sustain both soil and crop productivity in this region.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) are essential in agriculture and are often inter-linked with glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP) production which supports binding of aggregates, enhanced SOC and biological attributes. However, conservation agricultural practices in agroecosystem may have significant impact on AMF diversity, GRSP and soil quality-related parameters (SQRPs). This current experiment was implemented to gauge AMF conization percentage (AMF-CP), GSRP and significant changes on critical SQRPs, and to investigate the linkages between AMF-CP, GRSP and SQRPs as influenced by synergistic tillage and weed management in CA. Contrasting tillage practices (Main plots) included the T₁:Conventional tillage with cotton- Conventional tillage with maize-fallow i.e., No Sesbania rostrata (Farmers’ practice), T₂:Conventional tillage with cotton- Zero tillage with maize- Zero tillage with Sesbania rostrata and T₃: Zero tillage with cotton + Sesbania rostrata residues- Zero tillage with maize + Cotton residues- Zero tillage with Sesbania rostrata + Maize stubbles. Weed management tactics (Sub plots) were W₁: Chemical weed control, W₂: Herbicide rotation, W₃: Integrated weed management and W₄: Single hand-weeded control. The roots and soil samples were collected at 60 DAS of maize. Analysis of examined parameters was done duly following standard protocols. The observed results indicated that 22.50 % of AMF-CP, 16.50 % of EE-GRSP and 12.08 % of T-GRSP was significantly higher in conservation tillage compared to T₁ (Farmers practice). SQRPs followed similar trend in the case of tillage. Significantly higher SMBC and β-galactosidase (β-GaA) was exhibited by W₄ and W₃. A highly significant positive correlation of AMF-CP and T-GRSP pool with SOC (r = 0.951∗∗ and 0.756∗∗), SMBC (r = 0.872∗∗ and r = 0.761∗∗), β-GaA (r = 0.916∗∗ and r = 0.832∗∗) and WSA_1–2mm (r = 0.888∗∗ and 0.882∗∗), respectively was also observed. Generally, AMF-CP and GRSP, and SQRPs correlated positively and significantly. The following parameters; T-GRSP, SOC, WSA_1–2mm, SMBC and β-GaA were selected as potential indicators to gauge the soil quality based on calculated principal component analysis (PCA). In general, the examined parameters in the study are highly supported by zero-till + crop residues, and can be considered indicators for monitoring agroecosystem.

Background: Rice, maize and Bt cotton are the predominant crops which are either grown solely or in rotation with other crops in Telangana state. As all these crops are exhaustive, non leguminous in nature and may lead to fast soil degradation. Therefore, a major agricultural research priority is needed to sustain soil productivity through carbon sequestration by including legume component in cropping systems. The present study was undertaken to investigate effect of cropping systems on carbon sequestration in the ongoing long-term field trial. Methods: This field investigation was initiated during the year 2017 at an experimental farm located at College of Agriculture, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad. The surface soil samples were collected at 0-15 cm depth in various treatments within different cropping systems after harvest of Kharif and Rabi crops, 2019-2020 at the completion of third year of the experiment and analysed for soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil inorganic carbon (SIC) status by following standard procedures. Data were subjected to statistical analysis by adopting RBD statistical tool and analysis of variance was worked by adopting operational statistics (OP STAT) software programme. Result: The results indicated the improvement in soil organic carbon over the initial status due to the effect of efficient cropping systems. Significantly highest build-up of organic carbon was noticed in the following cropping sequence: CS5: maize + pigeon pea (1:3) (1.25 Mg ha-1) and CS4: pigeon pea + green gram (1:3) - sesame (1.22 Mg ha-1) but the lowest value of SOC was recorded in CS1: rice-maize (7.51 Mg ha-1) and CS2: Bt cotton-fallow (7.24 Mg ha-1), respectively. During the study, it was also observed that in one of the cropping systems i.e., CS10: bhendi-marigold-beetroot showed the negative impact on the level of SOC stock (6.77 Mg ha-1) fell below the initial value (7.53 Mg ha-1) after third year of trial. However, the highest carbon sequestration rate was recorded in CS5: maize + pigeon pea (0.42 Mg ha-1 yr-1) and CS4: pigeon pea + green gram (1:3) - sesame (0.41 Mg ha-1 yr-1). The salient findings of this study showed that cropping systems involving legumes and fodder crops had improved soil organic carbon on long term basis.

Conservation agriculture experiment was undertaken to investigate synergistic effects of tillage and weed management on soil microbiome, and fungal diversity at vegetative (30 DAS) and tasselling (60 DAS) of maize and monitor yield. Main-treatments included T₁: Conventional tillage (CT) with Cotton- CT with maize- fallow, T₂: CT with Cotton- Zero tillage (ZT) with Maize- ZT with Sesbania rostrata (Sr) and T₃: ZT with Cotton + Sr residues- ZT with Maize + Cotton residues- ZT with Sr + Maize stubbles. Weed management (Sub-plots) were W₁: Chemical weed control, W₂: Herbicide rotation, W₃: Integrated weed management (IWM) and W₄: Single hand-weeded. Rhizo-sphere and plane samples were collected at 30 and 60 DAS for enzymatic, microbial analysis. The results demonstrated 25.90-44.72% and 20.31–50.72% decline on microbial and enzyme activities in T₁ + W₁, and in T₂ + W_2, respectively compared to T₃ and W₄ combinations at 30 DAS, due to herbicidal impact, which increased by 24.67–68.41% and 20.71–62.90% at tasseling. Metabolic quotient (qCO₂) decreased with T₃ and W₄ combinations. Kernel and system yield were 39.42% and 51.60% higher under T₃ + W₁ and T₃ + IWM combinations, respectively. Talaromyces flavus was identified under T₃ + IWM. The qCO₂ was exhibited with significant negative correlation with all biological attributes, while yield did not correlate. This suggest qCO₂ as potential indicator to assess agro-ecosystem. The PCA selected variables (enzymes, organic carbon, and microbial parameters) are highly supported by zero-till + residues, and can indicate improved soil health and sustained productivity.

Alpine wetlands, key carbon sinks and biodiversity hubs, remain understudied, especially under climate change pressures. Hence, the present study was conducted to assess the variability in soil enzyme activity (SEA) and the carbon management index (CMI) and to utilize principal component analysis (PCA) to explore the variation and correlation between SEA and CMI as influenced by altitudinal gradients in alpine wetlands. This information is essential for exploring the impacts of soil degradation and guiding restoration efforts. The study was designed in blocks (catchments) with six altitudinal variations (from 2500 to 3155 m a.s.l), equivalent to alpine wetlands from three catchments (Senqunyane, Khubelu and Sani) as follows: Khorong and Tenesolo in Senqunyane; Khamoqana and Khalong-la-Lichelete in Sani; and Lets’eng-la-Likhama and Koting-Sa-ha Ramosetsana in Khubelu. The soil samples were collected in February 2025 (autumn season, i.e., wet season) at depths of 0–15 and 15–30 cm and analyzed for bulk density, texture, pH, electrical conductivity (EC), soil organic carbon (SOC), SEA, and carbon pools, and the CMI was computed following standard procedures. The results demonstrated that the soil was loam to sandy loam and was slightly acidic and non-saline in nature in the 0–15 cm layer across the wetlands. The significant decreases in SEA were 45.33%, 32.20% and 15.11% (p < 0.05) for dehydrogenase, fluorescein di-acetate and β-Galactosidase activities, respectively, in KSHM compared with those in Khorong (lower elevated site). The passive carbon pool (C_PSV) was dominant over the active carbon pool (C_ACT) and contributed 76–79% of the SOC to the total organic carbon, with a higher C_PSV (79%) observed at KSHM. The CMI was also greater (91.05 and 75.88) under KSHM at the 0–15 cm and 15–30 cm soil depths, respectively, than in all the other alpine wetlands, suggesting better carbon management at higher altitudinal gradients and less enzymatic activity. These trends shape climate change outcomes by affecting soil carbon storage, with high-altitude regions serving as significant, though relatively less active, carbon reservoirs. The PCA-Biplot graph revealed a negative correlation between the CMI and SEA, and these variables drove more variation across sites, highlighting a complex interaction influenced by higher altitude with its multiple ecological drivers, such as temperature variation, nutrient dynamics, and shifts in microbial communities. Further studies on metagenomics in alpine soils are needed to uncover altitude-driven microbial adaptations and their role in carbon dynamics.