02/03/2023, 00:57 Crop and water productivity, energy auditing, carbon footprints and soil health indicators of Bt-cotton

-cotton transplanting led system intensificati…

Journal of Environmental Management

Volume 300, 15 December 2021, 113732

Crop and water productivity, energy auditing, carbon footprints and soil
health indicators of Bt-cotton transplanting led system intensification
Sudhir K. Rajpoot a b , D.S. Rana a d , Anil K. Choudhary a c

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113732 ↗
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Highlights
• Higher productivity, water-saving (60%) & radiation-use efficiency (10.7%) in
TPC.

• TPC-based systems (TPCBS) enhanced crop (26.1%) & water productivity (19.3%).

• Improved energy-output (6.8%) and energy-productivity (16.7%) in TPCBS.

• TPCBS enhanced carbon-output, carbon-efficiency with ∼20% less carbon-

footprints.

• TPCBS as viable options for improving yields, soil health & ecosystem services.

Abstract
Direct-seeded-cotton (DSC) leads to low crop and water productivity and energy-output with higher
carbon-footprints besides impairing system-intensification under conventional cotton-wheat cropping
system (CWCS). Hence, we evaluated two methods of Bt-cotton establishment [transplanted cotton (TPC) &
DSC)] at three planting geometries/densities in four Bt-cotton based cropping-systems [DSC-wheat (DSC-
W), TPC-wheat-mungbean (TPC-W-M), DSC-onion (DSC-O), TPC-onion-fodder cowpea + fodder maize (TPC-
O-FC + FM)] in semi-arid region of south Asia. Poly-glass nursery-raised TPC exhibited significantly higher
germination (96.5%), seedling-survival (96.1%) and 14.1% higher plant-stand owing to lower seedling-
mortality (3.2%). TPC used ∼60% less irrigation-water but exhibited significantly higher seed-cotton, seed
and lint yield, net-returns, radiation-use-efficiency and water-productivity by 11.4, 9.9, 14.3, 17.3, 10.7 and
260.6%, respectively over DSC. Planting geometry/density of 60 × 45 cm (37,037 plants ha−1) exhibited
significantly higher crop and water productivity and economic-returns. Bt-cotton transplanting led system-

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02/03/2023, 00:57 Crop and water productivity, energy auditing, carbon footprints and soil health indicators of Bt-cotton transplanting led system intensificati…

intensification enhanced the system-productivity (26.1%), profitability (30.5%), water-productivity (19.3%)

and land-use-efficiency (8.5%) over the DSC-based systems with significantly higher values under TPC-O-
FC + FM. Energy-use pattern reveled that farm inputs viz. Fertilizers (54–60%), water (15–25%) and diesel (6–
10%) consumed bulk of the input-energy in different cropping systems with greatest values under TPC-O-
FC + FM. TPC-W-M exhibited highest system energy-output (604.6 × 103 MJ ha−1) and energy-returns
(566.2 × 103 MJ ha−1). TPC-O-FC + FM exhibited significantly higher carbon-consumption (668.9 kg CE ha−1)
and carbon-output (21431.3 kg CE ha−1) while maintaining significantly higher carbon-efficiency (32.0) and
carbon sustainability index (31.0). TPC-O-FC + FM had least carbon-footprints (0.07 kg CE kg−1 SCEY) while
conventional-CWCS exhibited 2-folds higher carbon-footprints. Legume-imbedded TPC-based cropping
systems markedly increased the soil physical (bulk-density, water-stable-aggregates), chemical (SOC,
available-NPK) and biological properties (soil-microbial-biomass-carbon, dehydrogenase and ergosterol
activity) over the conventional CWCS and DCS-O systems. Overall, Bt-cotton transplanting led system-
intensification upholds great importance in enhancing the system crop and water-productivity, profitability,
energy-productivity, resource-use-efficiency and soil-health with minimal carbon-footprints in semi-arid
agro-ecosystems of south Asia.

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Keywords
Cotton–wheat cropping system; Carbon footprints; Energy productivity; Radiation-use efficiency;
Transplanted Bt-cotton; Water productivity

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