the use of combine harvesters in India for rice and wheat is generating millions of tonnes of crop residue every year. To dispose the waste, farmers usually burn it. This causes significant loss of nutrients in the soil and destroys its microbes, besides adding to greenhouse emissions, a study by scientists from Delhi-based National Physical Laboratory and the Rice-Wheat Consortium of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico.

The giant harvesting machines cut close to the grain-bearing crest of the plant. The remaining part