ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Agron.
Sec. Agroecological Cropping Systems
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fagro.2025.1681733
This article is part of the Research TopicEnhancing Ecosystem Services through Conservation Agriculture, Agroforestry, and Traditional Farming SystemsView all 9 articles
LEGUME-BASED CROP ROTATIONS SUSTAINS SOIL BIODIVERSITY, FERTILITY LEVELS, PRODUCTIVITY AND PROFITABILITY: EVIDENCE FROM LONG-TERM STUDY UNDER INDIAN SUBTROPICAL CONDITIONS
Provisionally accepted
- 1Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India
- 2ICAR - Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research, Meerut, India
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Abstract: Prolonged cultivation of the rice-wheat system in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) has led to soil degradation, groundwater depletion, and reduced input-use efficiency, necessitating resilient and diversified cropping systems. Therefore, a six-year field experiment (2017-18 to 2022-23) was conducted at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, Punjab, India, under randomized complete block design with four replications, to evaluate ten cropping systems (CS). The results revealed that the legume-integrated cropping system of maize-peas-spring groundnut (CS6), being statistically at par with other legume-based systems (CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS8), showed significantly lower bulk density (1.32 g/cm3) and higher availability of macronutrients [nitrogen (250.88 kg/ha), phosphorus (27.87 kg/ha), potassium (194.12 kg/ha)] and micronutrients [zinc (2.85 mg/kg), ferrous (25.02 mg/kg), copper (2.67 mg/kg) and manganese (12.35 mg/kg)] and substantially improved soil biological health, as indicated by increased microbial populations [bacteria (132.56 × 10⁶ CFU/g), fungi (25.34 × 10³ CFU/g), actinomycetes (35.01 × 10⁴ CFU/g) and diazotrophs (97.32 × 10⁴ CFU/g)], enzymatic activities [dehydrogenase (62.22 µg TPF/g/hr), alkaline phosphatase (10.78 µg PNP/g/hr) and urease (16.96 µg/g/hr)] and microbial biomass carbon (255.21 mg/kg) and microbial biomass nitrogen (20.01 mg/kg). The correlation analysis showed significant interrelationships (p ≤ 0.01 and 0.05), while PCA identified legume-based systems as key contributors to improved soil health. The cropping system CS6 produced 68.97% higher rice equivalent yield (199.88 q/ha) than rice-wheat (118.29 q/ha) system, consequently resulting in higher gross returns (₹3,91,770/ha), net returns (₹2,33,193/ha), BC ratio (1.47) and economic efficiency (₹639/ha/day), making it the most economically and ecologically sustainable system recommended for adoption.
Keywords: Cropping rotation, Enzymatic activity, microbial population, productivity, soilhealth, sustainability
Received: 07 Aug 2025; Accepted: 01 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Walia, Rani, Ravisankar, Bhagat, Kaur and Kaur. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Rakshit Bhagat, rakshit.bhagat232@gmail.com
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