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Plant Science Today (PST)

Research Articles

Vol. 13 No. sp5 (2026): Recent Advances in Agriculture

Energy productivity and system performance of diversified rice-based cropping systems

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14719/pst.11801
Submitted
16 September 2025
Published
22-09-2026

Abstract

The traditional rice-wheat system is a century-old practice that diminishes the potential of natural wealth and relies on energy-intensive methods in most rice-wheat growing regions. This system has grown year after year, explicitly showing a deterioration in total factor productivity. Hence, to determine the effective cropping system that achieves sustainability, energy efficiency and system productivity, a field study was conducted to analyse energy usage in relation to various desired farm input necessities and the amount of a crop or resource gathered after crop matured, specially the final yield under diversified rice-based cropping systems over four years from 2021-22 to 2024-25. The study focused on a rice-based system that involved 8 different crop sequences, utilizing diversification, zero-tillage sowing of wheat and green gram to analyse the energy dynamics, such as energy moves, transforms and is utilized within the studied systems of a choice of cropping systems. The study exposed that the sum of total energy utilised was observed to be highest in the cropping system of rice + potato + green gram, which utilised 65,750 MJ ha-1, next to the rice + vegetable pea + wheat (zero tillage) system with utilisation of 38,670 MJ ha-1 and the rice-wheat (zero tillage)-green gram (zero tillage) system, which recorded 37887 MJ ha-1. Overall, the rice + vegetable + green gram cropping system used 11 % less energy than the conventional rice-wheat cropping system (RWCS). The use of the rice + potato + green gram pattern yielded a significantly higher total output energy, estimated at 207,708 MJ ha-1, compared to the rice-wheat system, which yielded 34,330 MJ ha-1. The net energy returns are estimated to be significantly higher for the rice + potato + green gram system than for other fallowed systems. This adopted system consumed approximately 91 % more input resource energy, although it delivered 60 % higher energy productivity than the traditional rice-wheat cropping model. Overall, the rice-potato-green gram system achieved a 1.83-fold increase in total system productivity and a 1.48-fold increase in profitability over traditional rice-wheat methods.

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