There is a need to check the declining soil health and deteriorating environment under rice-wheat system. It is important to manage residues of rice-wheat cropping system. While wheat straw is used as fodder for animals and is valuable to the farmers,rice straw has not much economic use and thus remains unutilized. Majority of rice straw (about 20 million tons) is burnt by the farmers every year as it is the only available option for its quick and easy disposal. Apart from huge loss of organic matter and plant nutrients, burning of crop residues causes environmental pollution and health hazards. Thus, it needs to be recycled into soil to improve soil health and crop productivity. Incorporation of cereal residues poses problems in seed-bed preparation and needs extra tillage, which leads to higher costs. With the introduction of no-tillage in wheat, there is increasing interest in exploring the possibility of sowing wheat into rice stubbles.Until recently, direct drilling of wheat in combine harvested rice fields with heavy load of paddy straw was not possible due to lack of suitable machinery.
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