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Maintaining sustainable crop production on undulating, sloppy, and erodible soils in Shivalik foothills of North-west India is a challenging task. Intercropping is accepted as a highly sustainable system to reduce soil erosion and ensure sustainable production by making efficient use of resources. Field experiments were conducted in the rainy season (July to September) during 2015, 2016, and 2017 to evaluate the effect of land slopes and maize and cowpea strip-intercropping on productivity and resource conservation at the Regional Research Station, Ballowal Saunkhri located in the Shivalik foothills. During three years of experimentation, a total of 23–26 runoff events were observed in the maize crop grown in the rainy season. The results from this 3-year field study indicate that maize grain yield was significantly higher on a 1% slope and cowpea on a 2% slope. This accounted for significantly higher net returns (US$ 428 ha−1) with a benefit-cost (BC) ratio of 2.0 on a 1% slope. Runoff, soil, and nutrient losses were higher on a 3% slope as compared to 1% and 2% slopes. N, P, and K loss on a 3% slope were 3.80, 1.82, and 4.10 kg ha−1 higher, respectively than a 1% slope. The adoption of a strip-intercropping system with a 4.8 m maize strip width and 1.2 m cowpea strip width resulted in significantly higher maize equivalent yield than sole maize and other strip-intercropping systems. This system showed the highest land equivalent ratio value (1.24) indicating a 24% yield advantage over sole cropping systems of maize and cowpea, and fetched the highest net returns (US$ 530 ha−1) with a benefit-cost ratio (BC ratio) of 2.09. This system also reduced runoff and soil loss by 10.9% and 8.3%, respectively than sole maize crop. On all the land slopes, maize and cowpea strip-intercropping systems showed a significant reduction in N, P, K, and organic carbon loss as compared to sole maize. Thus, on sloping land, the maize and cowpea strip-intercropping system decreases surface runoff, soil, and nutrient loss, and increases yield and income of the farmers as compared to a sole maize crop.

A number of options available for rice residue management including in-situ incorporation, onfarm retention or removal, are available with the farmers to tackle with the menace of rice residue burning. In this connection, a survey was conducted in five villages of district Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, Punjab adopted by Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Langroya to identify the paddy straw management techniques followed by the farmers and determine their relative cost effectiveness and resource use efficiency, and saving of time for the sowing of succeeding wheat. Survey showed that majority (6283%) farmers in the adopted villages, preferred sowing of wheat crop with Happy Seeder. The insitu residue incorporation techniques were followed by a maximum of 34% farmers. Happy Seeder technology took only 2.42 h to sow an area of one hectare as compared to 10.02 and 11.75 h for residue incorporation involving a sequence of operations comprising either disc harrow-rotodrill or disc harrow-seed broadcast-rotavator. Highest energy efficiency was recorded in Happy Seeder technology, which used 19.97 L of diesel to sow one hectare area in comparison to 69.77 and 71.60 L in disc harrow-rotodrill and disc harrows-broadcasting-rotavator techniques, respectively. Furthermore, least cost of crop establishment (Rs. 3020/ha) was observed using Happy Seeder method compared to Rs. 4812 and Rs. 5195 for disc harrow-rotodrill and disc harrows-broadcasting-rotavator, respectively. Our study clearly demonstrates that for on-farm rice residue management, sowing of wheat crop using Happy Seeder (surface residue retention) is an economically viable and eco-friendly option as compared to residue incorporation.