Environmental sustainability and water productivity on conservation tillage of irrigated maize in red brown terrace soil of Bangladesh

Conservation tillage (CA) is an option for maintaining soil health and the surrounding environment for intensive agriculture, especially on the tropical climate. A three years lengthy research experiment was performed in arid climate from 2014 to 2016 at Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) to evaluate the effect of conservation tillage approaches on environmental sustainability and water productivity of irrigated maize cultivation.

The conservation tillage practices (Zero tillage-ZT and Minimum tillage-MT) are evaluated in comparison to the traditional farmer's practices. Amongst these, the treatment combination having MT with optimum irrigation best suits for cost-effective sustainable technique in maize cultivation without compromising with the yield at the dry season in the red brown terrace soil of Bangladesh.

This combination of CA treatment is environment-friendly for maize cultivation as the treatment combination consumes the lowest amount of fuel (29.70 L/ha) for tilling purposes and required fewer water resources (only 2 time irrigation) for irrigation purposes and thus reduces the amount of carbon dioxide and other emitted toxic gaseous molecules to the surrounding environment.

Therefore, MT with optimum irrigation is evaluated as the best options for continuous maize cultivation in the red brown terrace soil without any yield penalty.