Long-term conservation agriculture-based practices impact crop yields, returns and yield stability in rice-wheat rotations in eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains of India

South Asia’s rice-wheat system is a regionally unique and crucially important cropping system contributing to staple food production. Over a 16-year period, a comprehensive experimental study on the rice-wheat cropping system indicated that, while wheat yields demonstrated a gradual increase over time, rice yields largely reached a stable level across various management approaches. An extensive analysis of data spanning 16 years revealed that the average yield in the rice-wheat system improved by 13% to 22% under conservation agriculture (CA) methods (namely, permanent raised bed, identified as T3, and zero-tillage, known as T6, both incorporating residue retention) compared to the traditional tillage system (referred to as T1).​