Crop establishment and nutrient management options: Optimizing productivity, maximize profitability and mitigating adverse climatic conditions in the maize-based production system of Northwest India

Poor fertilizer management and intensive tillage have increased production costs, lowered productivity, and significantly depleted soil nutrients. Although nutrient management options (NMOs) within crop establishment options (CEOs) based maize production system (MPS) is seldom explored, CEOs is increasingly advocated to tackle problems with soil health, food security, and climate change. Developing and implementing effective NMOs is needed for improving system sustainability, profitability, and productivity. We evaluated the effects of CEOs and NMOs on nutrient acquisition, profitability, and maize productivity in the Northwestern Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGPs) of India during 2018–2019. In this study, four CEOs treatment [(i) conventional tillage without residue {CT–R}, (ii) conventional tillage with residue {CT+R}, (iii) permanent raised bed without residue {PRB–R}, and (iv) permanent raised bed with residue {PRB+R}], were kept in the main plot and three NMOs [(i) soil test-based recommendation {STBR}, (ii) nutrient expert-based recommendation {NE}, and (iii) NE with GreenSeeker {NE+GS} were tested in subplots. The results showed that the crop growth metrics, including plant height, dry matter accumulation, leaf area index, and crop growth rate, were significantly greater at PRB+R comparing to treatments. Additionally, PRB+R resulted in the shortest time to 50 % and 75 % silking, indicating enhanced crop development. NMOs significantly improved crop growth parameters. The NE+GS treatment recorded higher plant height (145.8–149.2 cm and 222.3–224.8 cm), dry matter accumulation (195.5–198.4 g/m² and 408.4–412.0 g/m²), leaf area index (2.45–2.48 and 3.24–3.30), and crop growth rate (6.50 and 7.10 g/m²/day). PRB+R showed the shortest silking times (60.5 and 62.2 days). PRB+R also attained the maximum maize yield (6.23 and 6.26 t/ha), by a 17.82 % and 17.57 % increase over CT–R in 2018 and 2019. The NE+GS treatment resulted in the highest maize productivity, with additional yield gains over NE alone and STBR. The lowest cultivation cost ($513.87/ha and $513.97 /ha), highest net return ($1028.91/ha and $1083.60/ha), and best benefit-cost ratio (2.00 and 2.11) were observed with PRB–R, while gross returns ($1573.78/ha and $1630.42/ha) had highest in PRB+R. The NE+GS option achieved higher gross returns ($1544.73/ha and $1599.37/ha), net returns ($918.29/ha and $977.30/ha), and benefit-cost ratios (1.47 and 1.57) with lower cultivation costs ($626.43/ha and $622.06/ha) compared to NE and STBR. The PRB+R and NE+GS combination had found highest nutrient uptake (N, P, K) in grain and straw, highlighting their effectiveness in nutrient management. Overall, our findings recommend adopting PRB+R and NE+GS to optimize maize production system productivity and profitability, ensuring agricultural sustainability and resilience to adverse climatic conditions in Northwest India.