Comparison of the energy consumption in traditional and advanced paddy residue management technologies for wheat sowing

Abstract

The study examines the energy consumption for paddy harvesting and wheat sowing using different techniques. The research was planned with ten treatments using three straw management practices, i.e., Retention, Incorporation, and Removal of straw. Major portion of energy is consumed in form of diesel energy, which was the highest energy consumption source, with a participation of 79.3 to 86.5%. It was resulted that T₄ had the opulent while T₇ had the miserable yield. Least energy was consumed in treatment T₂ (1582.9 MJ ha^-1) and the most was in treatment T₅ (3500.4 MJ ha^-1). The specific energy consumption was 25.47, 24.94, 27.74, 49.68, 58.15, 46.60, 55.82, 51.43, 53.01 and 37.78 MJ ha^-1, respectively for Treatment T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄, T₅, T₆, T₇, T₈, T₉, and T₁₀. Specific energy is more in removal and incorporation of straw residue practices in comparison to residue retention practices. It can be concluded that treatments using direct drilling machine was the most efficient in case of specific energy consumption. Residue retention tillage practice with happy seeder should be used to make higher productivity with efficient energy input to manage paddy residue.