Exploring sustainable agricultural production models to coordinate system productivity, soil biological health and eco-efficiency in the semi-arid region

Designing sustainable agricultural models is imperative to enhance farm productivity, and soil health with minimum ecological footprints. Therefore, three cropping systems viz., maize-mustard (M-Mus), maize + cowpea-mustard (M + C-Mus), pigeon pea-wheat (PP-W) were tested under four production scenarios viz., integrated organic management (IOM), integrated crop management (ICM), conventional system (CS), and conservation agriculture (CA) for three consecutive years (2018–2021) to find out the productive, soil supportive, and eco-efficient production model. The ICM recorded significantly higher system productivity i.e. 12107, 12889, and 12866 kg ha −1 during 2018–19, 2019–20, and 20–21 over other production system, respectively. Among the cropping systems, the PP-W system registered the maximum system productivity of 12007.0 kg ha −1 during 2018–19, 11899 kg ha −1 in 2019–20, and 12247 kg ha −1 during 20–21. This led to ∼15% higher average system productivity over the maize-mustard system. Nutrient (N, P, and K) acquisition was the highest by the M + C-Mus system followed by the PP-W system. All soil biological indicators considerably improved under IOM followed by ICM across the soil profile after three years. Cultivation of the PP-W system under IOM registered the highest energy use efficiency (73.24). Concerning the eco-efficiency index (EEI), cultivation of PP-W under the IOM production scenario registered ∼ 2.85 times higher EEI (0.20 US$ MJ −1 ) over the M-Mus cropping under CS. Thus, findings inferred that legume-embedded systems under either IOM or ICM production scenarios are sustainable production models for fetching higher profitability with minimum environmental impact under semi-arid regions. • The ICM recorded higher system productivity over other production scenarios. • The pigeonpea-wheat (PP-W) system had the highest energy use efficiency under IOM. • The IOM and ICM had 2-3 times higher EUE and 50–60% higher EP over the CS. • The PP-W registered ∼ two-fold higher eco-efficiency index over the CS.