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Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the center of all physical, chemical and biological properties of soils, its maintenance and buildup in soils is necessary to sustain the intensive cereal-based cropping system of Indo Gangetic plains. Intensive tillage, residue removal and indiscriminate use of fertilizers led to a continuous deterioration of soil health in Indo Gangetic parts of the country. Under this context, a field experiment on conservation agriculture (CA) was conducted at Taroari, Kamal, comprising four combinations of tillage and residue management [i.e. conventional tillage (CT) with complete residue removal (CT-RR), CT with 20% residue incorporation of wheat, 50% residue incorporation of maize and incorporation of green gram residue (CT+RI+GI), permanent beds (PB) with 20% residue retention of wheat and 50% residue retention of maize (PB+RR), and PB with 20% residue retention of wheat, 50% residue retention of maize and retention of green gram residue (PB+RR+GR)J and three nutrient management options [viz. farmers fertilization practice (FFP), recommended fertilizer dose (RDF) and site-specific nutrient management (SSNM)]. The results showed that, there was an increase in SOC mainly the active SOC pools, permanganate oxidizable-C (1.70 g/kg), hot water extractable-C (0.32 g/kg) and soil microbial biomass C (310 mg/kg) under CA-based treatment (PB+RR+GR) compared to CT (0.58, 0.23 g/kg, 183 mg/kg, respectively). Also, the mineral N was invariably greater under residue treatments. Therefore, crops residue retention as well as balanced fertilization (RDF and SSNM) under CA helped in improving SOC; mineral N and soil aggregation stability which can lead to increased sustainability under cereal-based intensive cropping systems.

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