Table 4.

Drivers of agricultural change, crop rotation, tillage, crop establishment method, and residue management under different scenarios.

Scenarios (Sc)	Drivers of change	Crop rotation	Tillage	Crop establishment	Residue management
1	Business as usual (Farmer’s practice)	Rice–Wheat-Fallow	Conventional tillage (CT) rice and wheat	Rice: transplanting Wheat: broadcast	All residue removed
2	Increase food production and income	Rice–wheat-Fallow	CT direct seeded rice (CTDSR) –Zero tillage (ZT) wheat	Rice:drill seeding Wheat: drill seeding	Full (100%) rice residue retained and wheat residue incorporated
3	Deal with rising scarcity of labor, water, energy, degrading soil health and emerging climatic variability	Rice–wheat-Fallow	ZTdirect seeded rice (ZTDSR)– ZT wheat	Rice: Drill seeding Wheat: Drill seeding	Full (100%) rice and anchored (15–20 cm height) wheat residue retained
4	Farmer’s practice for maize based system	Maize–wheat-Fallow	Maize- Fresh beds (FB);Wheat –CT	Maize: Drill seeding Wheat: Broadcast	All residues removed
5	Deal with rising scarcity of labor, water, energy, degrading soil health and emerging climatic variability	Maize–wheat-Fallow	Permanent beds (PB)	Same as in Sc3 using multi crop bed planter	Anchored residue of both the crops retained
6	Same as Sc5	Maize–wheat-Fallow	ZT in both the cropson flat beds	Same as in Sc3	Anchored residue of both the crops retained
7	Sustainable intensification of MW system through mungbean integration to deal same issues as in Sc3	Maize–Wheat–Mungbean	ZT in all the three cropson flat beds	Maize: Drill seeding Wheat: Drill seeding Mungbean: Drill/relay	Anchored residue of both rice and wheat and full mungbean residue retained