Identification of a resource-efficient integrated crop management practice for the rice-wheat rotations in south Asian Indo-Gangetic Plains

Conservation agriculture (CA) coupled with the integrated crop management (ICM)-practices based on a whole-farm approach could preserve the agroecosystems to achieve the soil-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Hence, eight conventional and CA-based ICM practices have been evaluated for 6 years in a direct seeded rice-zero till wheat rotation; wherein, ICM1&2- conventional (CT) rice followed by (fb) flatbed wheat, ICM3&4- CT direct seeded rice (DSR) fb raised-bed wheat, ICM5&6- CA-based zero tilled (ZT) DSR fb ZT wheat with the wheat and rice residues, and ICM7&8- CA-based ZTDSR fb ZT wheat with the wheat, mungbean, and rice residues. The CA-based ICM7–8 practices outperformed the traditional (CT)-based ICM1–4 practices in terms of wheat equivalent yields (WEY) (10.8–14.7%) and sustainable yield indices (SYI) of rice (10.8–21.7%) and wheat (12.9–16.1%) crops, demonstrating the greater sustainability of RWR. Additionally, the ICM techniques led to a substantial (p