Influence of Different Residue Retention and Nutrient Levels on Crop Productivity of Soybean (Glycine max L.) under Conservation Agriculture

During the kharif season of 2020-22, a field experiment with soybean in a soybean-wheat cropping system was conducted at the ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil Science, Bhopal, (M.P.) to assess the effect of different levels of crop residue retention treatments and nutrient doses on growth parameters, physiological indices, yield attributes, yield and profitability of soybean. The experiment was laid out with Factorial Randomized Block Design (FRBD) comprised of 16 combinations of 4 residue level (0%, 30%, 60% and 90%) and 4 nutrient doses (N1-RDF (120:60:40 kg N, P2O5 and K2O ha-1), N2-75% N+100% P2O5 and K2O ha-1, N3-75% P2O5+100% N and K2O ha-1, N4-75% K2O+100% N and P2O5 ha-1) with 3 replication under ongoing CRP-CA (Consortium Research Platform on Conservation Agriculture). The result showed that growth parameters, physiological indices as well as yield, yield attributes and profitability were significantly higher in 90% than other crop reside retention treatment. The higher (90%) crop residue retention resulted in 16% higher grain yield, 16.88% stover yield and 17.55% higher profitability then without residue treatment. Among different nutrient doses 100% RDF showed significantly higher growth and better physiological indices at all the growth stages. Significantly higher seed (1226 kg ha-1) and stover (2274 kg ha-1) yields were recorded with 100% RDF with any other management practices.