Performance of green manuring for soil health and crop yield improvement

Intensive cultivation, low and imbalance use of fertilizers, soils are continuously depleted and degraded.Green manuring (GM) is a well-known practice performed by the farming communities almost around the globe.Green manure crops are grown and ploughed as green foliage to improve soil characteristics.Leguminous crops have more importance as green manure over non-leguminous crops.Green manuring is one of the important possible options in achieving the ultimate goal of sustainable crop yield improvement.Various studies have highlighted the role of green manuring in improving soil organic matter, soil porosity, water holding capacity and soil C: N ratio.Fertilizer use efficiency (FUE) is improved by incorporation of green manure crops.It is helpful in sustainable agriculture systems by maximizing the crop yields and improving the livelihood of farming community.High yielding varieties are being introduced at a rapid pace to meet up the current challenges related to food security.Therefore, integrated use of green manuring and fertilizers is the best combination for achieving higher yield.Inclusion of green manure crops in the exiting cropping system has some constraints like availability of quality seed to farmers, performance variability in green manure crops, problems related to its establishment and incorporation as well.Moreover, costly tillage, seeding operations and labor need to be reduced for better adoption of green manure programme.The sole objective of this article was to review the advances in green manuring technology.