Interactive effects of intercropping and mulching under conservation tillage as sustainable agriculture increased cotton productivity

Climate change poses a significant risk to food security. Recent floods in Pakistan could serve as an example. In the current climate change scenario, there is a dire need to develop methods that increase crop productivity and reduce the threat of food insecurity in areas with low crop production. A detailed field experiment was conducted to check the effects of intercropping and straw mulching under conventional tillage (CT) and no tillage (NT) systems on soil health indicators and cotton productivity at the experimental area of Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology (KFUEIT), Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan. The main plot treatments comprised CT and NT. The subplot treatments were sole cotton (C1), cotton + mung-bean intercropping (C2), cotton + mung-bean + straw mulching (C3) and cotton + straw mulching (C4) under CT, while sole cotton (N1), cotton + mung-bean intercropping (N2), cotton + mung-bean + straw mulching (N3) and cotton + straw mulching (N4) were the NT subplot treatments. Overall, NT increased plant height by 18.4 %, chlorophyll a and b contents by 28.2 and 21.1%, respectively, mean boll weight by 17.9%, and seed yield by 20.9% compared to CT ( P < 0.05). The interaction of tillage and mulching increased plant height by 7.0% under CT and 21.8% under NT in comparison with no mulching. Similarly, straw mulching under NT increased chlorophyll a and b contents by 41.9 and 28.5%, respectively, mean boll weight by 26.9%, and cotton seed yield by 23.0% in comparison with no mulching under NT. Intercropping decreased crop yield without straw mulching but increased it under straw mulching. Further, straw mulching increased soil physicochemical properties under NT, which contributed to increasing crop productivity. We concluded that straw mulching under NT might be a promising practice for enhancing cotton yield, productivity, and soil health in low-productivity areas.