Short to medium term effects of tillage and residues on cool dry season crops in a rice-based system of Bangladesh

The densely-populated region of the Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain relies on rice-based cropping systems. However, the sustainability of the system under conventional cultivation is jeopardized by soil and water resource degradation, and increasing scarcity and cost of inputs (Gathala et al., 2011). In rice-dryland crop systems, rice is grown in puddled and submerged soil while the dryland crop is grown after rice with intensive tillage and limited residue retention. Although puddling is beneficial for establishing rice by transplanting, it can harmful for the next dryland crop (Gathala et al., 2011). Conservation agriculture (CA), comprising minimum soil disturbance along with increased residue retention and suitable crop rotation may hold the key to address these problems (Johansen et al., 2012). Conservation agriculture practices are emerging but there is still limited understanding on dryland crop performance in rice-based systems of Bangladesh. This paper focuses on the effects of CA on grain yields of cool dry season crops over three years in a rice-based system