Most of research studies endorse that incorporation of crop residues is a healthy practice to enrich soils and improve soil fertility.In case of Rice/PADDY being grown in India,there is severe issue of straw burning during Oct-Nov. months and govt.agencies are trying it hard to discourage farmers from burning as it leads to lot of environmental pollution, breating issues like Asthama .
However,one group of scientists is advocating that incorporating rice straw into fields shall be causing much more generation of harmful gases as compared to burning and immobilisation of nutrients for next crop,which will be harmful to upcoming crop like wheat?
So what can be final take out of this ?
For most crops other than flooded paddy, incorporation into soil is the best practice since regularly cropped soils are depleted of organic matter. If disease spread is an issue with residues for new crops, crop rotation is the only solution. Burning of residues will be increasingly frowned upon hence we need to find alternatives.
On the other hand, crops like flooded paddy, freshly ploughed in straw residues with very high organic-C levels can be a nuisance under anaerobic/anoxic soil conditions. This can be avoided to an extent by incorporating the residues soon after harvest by ploughing in rather than leaving it as fallow. If done, by the growing season much of the residues should have decomposed by high soil temperature.
Residue incorporation is one of the best ways to regain soil health. Waste decomposer may be used to escape delay in next crop sowing...
Insitu Residue incorporation is one and only scientific way to restore soil fertility and sustainability....incorporation of residue in the soil might be rice straw or wheat straw or any other crop by products resulted in decomposition by the action of soil microorganisms which secretes polysaccharides and mucilage compounds needed to have better soil aggregation, to reduce bulk density as volumn of soil is increased thereby porosity and water holding capacity increased. Soil become porous and friable which could be helpful for better conservation of soil moisture inside the soil , better edaphic climate including physical chemical and biological environmental...
While residue burning creates problem of pollution, decreasing carbon pool and organic matter which later on become detrimental for plant survival...
The in-situ residue incorporation of paddy straw is a much better option than straw burning as the Greenhouse gas emissions are greatly reduced, but in the crop cycles other than the wheat-rice pattern, for eg like the rice-potato-maize pattern, there have been noticeable ill effects of straw incorporation into the soil. It has been noticed that the immediately next crop i.e. Potato is more prone to blight and also more rotting in case of heavy rains when compared to the fields where burning is practiced. Since burning too cannot be advocated due to its harmful effects on the environment, therefore, the mechanized collection of straw is the best option provided the governments can provide farmers with a fixed cost of the collected straw either for use in electricity generation, fodder, biochar or by promoting industry using rice straw for manufacturing composite materials.
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