EVALUATION OF SUSTAINABILITY INDEX FOR ORGANIC, INORGANIC AND INTEGRATED NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN RICE.

There has been much discussion on the merits of producing crops using organic versus inorganic methods. No system is ideal and each system has its own advantage and limitation. In such a situation, it is necessary to develop an estimation technique that is reliable and reflects the usefulness of a system in quantitative terms. In this study, data were collected from a research experiment conducted at IIT Roorkee to evaluate the system sustainability (SI) of rice grown in different soil nutrient management practices. The result indicates that integrated nutrient management (INM) practice (SI-1.03) greatly impacts soil fertility and crop produce's nutritional quality. The organic system failed to produce yield but has shown the best result to sustain soil fertility (SI-1.02). The inorganic system (SI-1.00) has a good response on yield sustainability but failed to sustain soil health and nutritional quality of produce. Overall, the method is easy to use and may be beneficial to understanding and easily comparing the different production systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]