ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Climate-Smart Food Systems
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1484079
This article is part of the Research Topic Conservation Agriculture For Food Security And Climate Resilience View all 7 articles
Optimizing maize systems with raised beds: boosting productivity, profitability, and sustainability
Provisionally accepted
Raj K JAT 1 Vijay Singh Meena 1,2* Illathur R Reddy 1 R K SOHANE 3 R N SINGH 3 Shubham Durgude 1 Suneel Kumar 1 Selvaganesan Pazhanismy 1 Sunita K Meena 4 Kumari Sardha 3 Susheel Singh 3 RAMA KANT SINGH 3 Seema Kumari 3 K M Singh 3 Govind Kumar 3 Amit Kumar 1 Asheesh Chaurasiya 3 Raghubar Sahu 3 G L CHOUDHARY 3 Paras Nath 3 Pankaj Kumar 3 Abhay Kumar 5 Ratnesh Kumar Jha 4 Ujjwal Kumar 5 Anup Das 5- 1 CIMMYT-Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA),, Samastipur, Bihar, India
- 2 Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR), New Delhi, India
- 3 BAU-Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur (Bihar) India, Bhagalpur, India
- 4 Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Samastipur, Bihar, India
- 5 ICAR-Research Complex for Eastern Region, Patana, Bihar, India
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Maize (Zea mays) is an economically important cereal crop, whose adaptability to a variety of agroecological zones and uses as a food, feed, and input in various industries has ensured its global importance. In this study, the implications of the raised bed planting (RBP) system on smallholder maize farming of Bihar, India, for four consecutive Rabi seasons were evaluated from 2020-2021 to 2023-2024. The research focuses on key parameters, such as productivity, profitability, water use efficiency (WUE), and nutrient use efficiency (NUE), to present a sustainable alternative to traditional flatbed planting systems. Maize productivity yield at RBP ranged from 9.28 to 10.53 t ha -1 , significantly higher than the range of 5.70 to 8.29 t ha -1 for flat bed (FB). The RBP (raised bed planting) system was more profitable as well, where net return increased by 20% compared to the FB system. WUE was 35% better at RBP system, and NUE (grain yield per unit of applied N) was 25% better than flat bedFB systems.RBP enhances water and nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) use efficiency, boosting productivity and profitability.
Keywords: Maize, Raised bed planting, productivity, net returns, Water and nutrient use efficiency
Received: 21 Aug 2024; Accepted: 18 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 JAT, Meena, Reddy, SOHANE, SINGH, Durgude, Kumar, Pazhanismy, Meena, Sardha, Singh, SINGH, Kumari, Singh, Kumar, Kumar, Chaurasiya, Sahu, CHOUDHARY, Nath, Kumar, Kumar, Jha, Kumar and Das. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Vijay Singh Meena, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR), New Delhi, India
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