Conservation agriculture useful for meeting future food demands and also contributing to sustainable agriculture. Conservation agriculture helps to minimizing the negative environmental effect and equally important to increased income to help the livelihood of those employed in agril. Production. Introduction of conservation technologies (CT) was an important break through for sustaining productivity, It seeks to conserve, improve and make more efficient use of natural resources through integrated management of soil, water, crops and other biological resources in combination with selected external inputs.

2. Resource Conservation Technologies for
management of soil health
Submitted by
Mr.GARDI AKSHAY GORAKH
Reg. No. 2017A/109M
Seminar Incharge
Dr. Syed Ismail
Head of Department
Dept. of SSAC
Research Guide
Dr. M.S.Deshmukh
Assistant Professor
Dept. of SSAC
DEPARTMENT OF SOIL SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY,
COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE, V.N.M.K.V.,
PARBHANI - 431 402 (M.S), INDIA.
MASTER SEMINAR ON

3.  Introduction
 Conservation Agriculture
 Principles of Conservation Agriculture
 Benefits of Conservation Agriculture
 Components of Conservation Agriculture
 Conservation Agriculture Technologies
 Conclusion
Contents

4.  Conservation agriculture useful for meeting future food
demands and also contributing to sustainable agriculture.
 Conservation agriculture helps to minimizing the negative
environmental effect and equally important to increased income
to help the livelihood of those employed in agril. Production.
 Introduction of conservation technologies (CT) was an
important break through for sustaining productivity,
 It seeks to conserve, improve and make more efficient use of
natural resources through integrated management of soil,
water, crops and other biological resources in combination with
selected external inputs.
INTRODUCTION

5. The term Conservation
agriculture refers to the
system of raising crops
without tilling the soil while
retaining crop residues on
the soil surface

6.  The total area under no-tillage/zero tillage in India it is about 3.43 m ha
 Efforts to adapt and promote resource conservation technologies have
been underway for nearly a decade
 Spread of conservation agriculture have been made through the
combined efforts of several SAU’s, ICAR institutes and the CG
promoted, Rice-Wheat Consortium for the Indo-Gangetic Plains
 CA technologies is taking place in the irrigated regions of Indo-
Gangetic plains where rice-wheat cropping system dominates
 CA systems have not been tried or promoted in other major agro-eco
regions like rainfed semi-arid tropics, the arid regions
Conservation Agriculture In India

7. Table : 1 EXTENT OF CA / NO-TILLAGE ADOPTION WORLD WIDE
Extent of No-tillage Adoption World
Wide (countries with > 100.000 ha)
Country
Area under No-tillage
(M ha)2008-2009.
USA 26,593
Brazil 25,502
Argentina 19,719
Canada 13,481
Australia 12,000
Paraguay 2,400
China 1,330
Kazakhstan 1,200
Bolivia 706
Uruguay 672
Spain 650
South Africa 368
Venezuela 300
Finland 200
Chile 180
New Zealand 162
Colombia 100
Ukraine 100
Russia -
Others (Estimate) 001
Total 105.863
Source: Derpsch, R. and Friedrich, T., 2009

9. PRESENT FUTURE
Conservation Agriculture
Conservation Agriculture…

10. • The Conservation agriculture
producer will see an increase
in organic matter.
• The CA increase in water
conservation, due layer of
organic matter and ground cover
to help eliminate transportation
and access runoff of water.
• CA is an improvement of
soil structure and rooting zone.
BENEFITS OF CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE

11. Conservation Agriculture
Comprises three basic
components
 Surface crop residue
retention
 Minimal soil movement
 Crop rotation

12. MODERN CONCEPTS OF CONSERVATION TILLAGE
Minimum tillage
Zero tillage
Stubble mulch tillage

13. Table : 2 Effect of cropping system on yield of
Maize and Wheat under zero and conventional
tillage:
Cropping
pattrrns
Zero-tillage Conventional tillage
Maize
(tonn/ha)
Wheat
(tonn/ha)
Maize
(tonn/ha)
Wheat
(tonn/ha)
Monoculture +
residue 4.3 5.3 3.5 4.9
Monoculture -
residue 2.2 4.4 3.4 4.3
Rotation +
residue
5.1 5.4 4.2 4.9
Rotation - residue
4.0 3.4 3.8 4.4
Govaerts et al., 2005

14. Resource Conservation Technologies
1. Precision farming
2. No-till systems
3. Furrow Irrigated Raised Bed (FIRB) planting
systems
4. Crop residue management
5. Crop diversification

15. 6. Use of GPS and GIS systems
7. Contour farming and Strip cropping
8. Rain Water harvesting
9. System of Rice Intensification ( SRI )
10. Integrated farming systems

16. Precision farming
 Precision agriculture refers to the application of precise
and correct amount of inputs like water, fertilizers,
pesticides etc. at the correct time to the crop for
increasing its productivity and maximizing its yields.
 The risk of environmental pollution from agrochemicals
applied at levels greater than those required by the crop
can be reduced (Earl et al. 1996)

17. No-till system
 In 1999 no-tillage was adopted on about 45 million ha world wide
(Derpsch, 2001), growing to 72 million ha in 2003 (Benites, et al., 2003)
and to 105 million ha in 2009
 One of the most important principles of Conservation Agriculture
(CA) is minimal soil disturbance. In no-till or zero till system, the
seed is placed into the soil by a seed drill without prior land
preparation
 This technology has been tested and is presently being practiced
over 2.0 million hectares of India
 This technology is more relevant in the higher yielding, more
mechanized areas of north western India

18. Treatmen
t
Kanpur R.S Pura
Organic
carbon
(%)
Available
P
(kg/ha)
Available
K (kg/ha)
Organic
carbon
(%)
Available
P
(kg/ha)
Available
K (kg/ha)
T1 0.29 21.4 188.2 0.38 11.5 91.5
T2 0.33 22.6 190.4 0.43 13.2 95.5
T3 0.31 24.8 194.5 0.48 14.2 93.2
T4 0.36 25.8 199.5 0.48 15.2 98.7
T5 0.34 26.5 198.4 0.46 13.2 95.7
T6 0.38 24.2 196.6 0.44 15.7 93.2
T7 0.40 28.4 201.2 0.45 14.2 91.6
T8 0.36 24.6 194.6 0.52 16.1 95.1
T9 0.38 26.8 195.4 0.55 17.3 108.2
T10 0.39 25.9 194.6 0.52 17.0 110.3
Initial 0.24 20.2 188.0 0.43 10.4 91.5
Table 3. Effect of soil organic carbon conservation practices on fertility
status after 6 cycles of rice wheat sequence
Source- Katyal and Gangwar, Indian Journal of Agronomy 46 (1): 1-4 (March 2001).

19. Sr. No Particulars*
Zero tilled
drilled
wheat
Strip till drilled
wheat
Rota till drilled
wheat
Conventional
tillage seedling
1 Grain yield (t/ha) 3.71 3.66 3.70 3.80
2
Cost of Production
(Rs./ha) 9746 10328 11064 11825
3 Benefit cost Ratio 2.47 2.30 2.17 2.09
4
Operational energy
(MJ/ha)
7176 8604 9216 9708
5
Specific
Operational energy
(MJ/kg)
1.93 2.35 2.49 2.55
6
Specific Cost of
Production (Rs. /kg) 2.63 2.82 2.99 3.11
Source: S. K. Rautray (2003)
Table : 4 Comparative performance of zero till drill, strip till
drill, rota till drill and conventional tillage

20. Furrow Irrigated Raised Bed (FIRB) planting systems
 It is a system in which crops are sown on ridges or
beds. The height of the beds is maintained at about
15 to 20 cm and having a width of about 40 to 70
cm depending on the crops
 Potential agronomic advantages of beds include
improved soil structure due to reduced
compaction through controlled traffick, and
reduced water logging beds also create the
opportunity for mechanical weed control and
improved fertilizer placement

21. Furrow Irrigated Raised Bed (FIRB) planting systems

22. Crop residue management
Majority of the farmers consider crop residues, as an unwanted by
products
Burning crop residues due to lack of efficient and user-friendly
technologies for in-situ recycling leads to loss of considerable
amount of N, P, K and S and the same can be retained/added in the soil
through residue management (Jat et al. 2004)
 Deterioration of soil, Lowering fertility, Burning of beneficial
insects/micro-organisms, financial loss (e.g. fodder, straw sale, and
kitchen fuel)
In fact, incorporation of stubbles/residues in soil eventually
improves the physical properties of soil e.g. infiltration rate, soil
porosity and WHC

23. Table : 5 Effect of crop residues on yield of
rice-wheat sequence
Treatment Grain yield of Rice (q ha-1) Grain yield of Wheat (q ha-1)
2001 2002 2001 2002
Crop residue
No crop residue 29.3 32.9 18.7 19.6
Pre-crop residue @ 5 t/ha 34.2 36.8 23.3 22.9
Left-over stubbles 31.2 36.5 22.5 22.1
Fly ash @ 2 t/ha 33.9 39.5 23.7 24.2
C.D. (p=0.05) NS 3.1 2.2 1.6
Starter dose
Control 30.4 32.4 19.3 19.4
FYM @ 5 t/ha 33.4 39.1 23.5 23.7
N 20 kg/ha 32.2 35.7 21.5 22.6
Trichoderma viride (TV) 31.1 34.2 21.9 20.9
TV + N 20 kg/ha 33.5 40.7 24.0 24.5
C.D. (p=0.05) NS 1.8 1.9 1.8
Place: Chatha Jammu (J & K.) Source: Kachroo and Dixit, 2005

24. Treatment Maize yield (q/ha)
Grain yield of Mungbean
(q/ha)
A. Cropping system
Maize sole (60 cm) 31.33 -
Maize + Mungbean (1:1) 35.77 2.82
Maize + Mungbean (1:2) 36.29 3.37
C.D. (P=0.05) 2.00 -
B. Moisture conservation practices
No mulch ( Control ) 31.58 2.36
Dust mulch + Straw mulch 34.31 3.12
Kaolin + Straw mulch 33.72 3.05
Kaolin + Dust mulch + Straw
mulch
35.46 3.47
FYM @ 5 tones/ha 33.39 2.98
FYM + Dust mulch + Straw mulch 38.33 3.66
C.D. (P=0.05) 2.15 -
Table : 6 Yield of maize as influenced by cropping
systems and moisture conservation practices
Source: Rana et al. (2004)

25. Major benefits of management of crop residues are as under
 Better soil health and productivity
 Addition in organic matter contents
 Enhances infiltration rate
 Improves water and nutrients use efficiency
 Accelerates microbial activity
 Lowers weeds infestation
 Increases yield by 15-20 percent
 Reduces environmental pollution
 Removal of residues can provide additional income
from grain recovery and straw sale and also dry feed for
livestock

26. Crop diversification
 Crop diversification proved to be of paramount
importance in mitigating the environmental problems
arising on account of monoculture
 Inclusion of certain crops in sequential and inter-cropping
systems has been found to reduce some obnoxious weeds
to a considerable extent, thereby reducing herbicides needs to
a great extent in areas where such weeds have assumed
alarming proportions

27. Table7. Effect of soil fertility management on SOC content (g/kg) in long term
manuring experiment at some locations of India.
Location control NPk Npk+FYM Periods(yrs.)
Bangalore 4.8 5.9 8.4 10
Bhubaneswar 3.7 5.7 8.1 21
Delhi 4.4 5.5 6.7 25
Hyderabed 4.6 5.3 8.0 23
Jabalpur 5.3 6.0 9.8 25
pantnagar 5.0 8.3 15 24
(Source: Swarup,A. (2001). Lessons from long term fertility
experiments. Project coordination cellon LTFE,IISS, Bhopal)

28. Tillage/Residue
Management
%
Organic
Matter
Na
ppm
Aggregate
Distribution
MWD#
Aggregate
Stability
MWD
SMB Cᵝ mg
kgsoil-1
SMB Nᵠ mg
kgsoil-1
Conventional Till
Beds Incorporated
Residue
1.23 564 1.32 1.262 464 4.88
Permanent Beds
Burn Residue
1.32 600 0.97 1.12 465 4.46
Permanent Beds
Partial Removal
Residue
1.31 474 1.05 1.41 588 6.92
Permanent Beds
Retain Residue
1.43 448 1.24 1.96 600 9.06
Mean LSD
(P=0.05)
1.32
0.15
513
53
1.15
0.22
1.434
0.33
552
133
6.40
1.60
Table 8. Effect of Tillage and crop residue management on soil properties (0-7Cm) for the
CIMMYT long-term bed planting trial, Mexico.
#=Mean Weight Diameter; β=Soil Microbial biomass-C containt; ψ=Soil Microbial biomass – N content
Source : Sayre et al., 2005; (CIMMYT) Mexico.

29. Constraints
All HHs (%) All HHs Ranks
High Medium Low
Low production at minimum tillage 9.61 18.12 19.43 47.66 1
Grow more weeds 8.08 28.82 10.48 47.38 2
Lower level of animal feed 25.55 5.68 4.80 36.03 3
Lower level of cooking fuel 15.94 12.88 6.33 35.15 4
Bothering job 2.62 11.35 15.94 29.91 5
Table 9: Constraints to Adoption of CA in the Studied Households
Source: Alteruzzaman and Jahan, The Bangladesh Journal of Agricultural Economics, 1
and 2 (2012) 143-153.

30. Items No. of HH % of total Rank
Less cost of labor for seeding, weeding &
harvesting
45 43.27 1
Increased soil fertility through crop rotation 32 30.77 2
Herbicides can be used for control weeds 15 14.42 3
Crop residues can be handled easily to procure
animal feed
8 8.65 4
Set up mind for alternative sources for cooking fuel 3 2.88 5
Table 10: Opportunities to Adoption of CA in the Studied Households
Source: Alteruzzaman and Jahan, The Bangladesh Journal of Agricultural Economics,
1 and 2 (2012) 143-153.

31. Crops Soil Loss
(t haˉ¹)
Runoff
(1000 l haˉ¹)
Nitrate
(kg haˉ¹)
Tomato 21.3 a 245 a 4.8 a
Corn 15.1 b 161 b 2.8 a
Cabbage 15.0 b 177 b 2.8 a
Table 11. Effects of crops on soil loss, runoff and nitrate loss (Cropping 1-7).
Source: Dano and Midmore, ISCO 2004 13th International Soil Conservation Organization
Conference – Brisbene, July 2004.
Values with same letter is not significantly different at P <0.05
Table 11. Effects of crops on soil loss, runoff and nitrate loss
t

32. Conservation
Measures
Soil Loss (t haˉ1) Runoff (1000 t haˉ1) Nitrate (kg haˉ1)
Up-and down 23.3 a 254 a 4.6 a
Contouring 13.5 b 147 b 3.3 a
Strip cropping 15.6 b 205 ab 3.5 a
Hedgerows 16.2 b 171 b 2.5 a
Table 12. Effects of erosion control measures on soil loss, runoff
and nitrate loss
Values with same letter is not significantly different at P <0.05
Source- Dano and Midmore, ISCO 2004 13th International Soil Conservation
Organization Conference – Brisbene, July 2004

33. Table 13. Summary of soil health indicators used to asses soil function
SN. Indicator Soil function
1 Soil organic matter (SOM) Soil structure, stability, nutrientretention; soil
erosion (Carter, 2002)
2 Physical: soil aggregate stability,
infiltration and bulk density
Retention and mobility of water and nutrients;
habitat for macro and micro fauna (Bengtsson,
1998; Swift et al., 2004)
3 Chemical: pH, extractable soil
nutrients, N-P-K and base cations Ca
Mg & K
Soil biological and chemical activity thresholds;
plant available nutrients and potential for N and P
as well as loss of Ca, g & K (Doran and Jones,
1996a; Drinkwater et al., 1996)
4 Biological: microbial biomass C and
N; potentially mineralizable N
Microbial catalytic potential and repository for C
and N; soil productivity and N supplying potential
(Cadisch and Giller, 1997; Doran and Jones, 1996b)

34. Impact of Conservation Agriculture Practices
 Reduction in Cost of Production
 Reduced Incidence of Weeds
 Saving in Water and Nutrients
 Increased Yields
 Environmental Benefits
 Crop Diversification Opportunities
 Resource Improvement

35. Constraints in Adopting Conservation Agriculture Systems
 Poses a challenge both for the scientific community and the farmers to
overcome the past mindset and explore the opportunities
 Managing conservation agriculture systems will be highly demanding in
terms of knowledge base, Conservation agriculture as an upcoming
paradigm for raising crops will require an innovation system
 Conservation agriculture systems are much more complex than the
conventional systems
 CA practices need a longer term and broader perspective which goes
beyond yield increases only

36. Resource conservation technologies should form an important
component of the regional strategy for food security, rural
development, enhance profitability, and sustainability of natural
resources. Resource conservation practices saved on fuel, labour,
irrigation water, production cost, energy etc along with positive
effects on soil health and environmental quality.
Thus conservation agriculture that help farmer to reduce cost of
cultivation and increase their profitability & improving soil health
should be encouraged for their large scale acceleration at farm level.
CONCLUSION