Energy auditing of long-term conservation agriculture based irrigated intensive maize systems in semi-arid tropics of India

In a 7-year study, we assessed the conservation agriculture (CA) practices [permanent bed (PB) and zero tillage (ZT)] and conventional till (CT) in 4-diversified maize rotations [maize-wheat-mungbean (MWMb), maize-chickpea-Sesbania green manure (MCS), maize-mustard-mungbean (MMuMb) and maize-maize-Sesbania green manure (MMS)]. Results showed that ZT and PB plots consumed lower energy (7 yr average) in land preparation (49.7–51.5%) and irrigation...