**Abstract**

The sustainability of the environment and the productivity of agriculture are both critically dependent on soil. Maximizing agricultural yields while reducing agriculture's negative environmental effects is becoming more and more important as the world's population continues to expand. Innovating tillage and management techniques to harness the potential of the soil is a topic that is explored in this chapter. The first section of the chapter describes the difficulties that contemporary agriculture faces, such as soil erosion, nutrient depletion, and water shortages. The part new technology has played in managing soil. Making educated management decisions is made easier by using precision agricultural technology like soil sensors, remote sensing, and geographic information systems (GIS). These technologies provide useful insights into soil variability. It emphasizes how crucial it is to implement sustainable soil management techniques in order to guarantee long-term agricultural output and ecological harmony. The chapter's conclusion emphasizes the need of maximizing soil potential through creative methods of tactical tillage and management. Agricultural systems may raise crop yield, lessen their environmental effect, and become more resilient to climate change by using sustainable soil practises, assuring a more sustainable and food-secure future.

**Keywords:** sustainability, innovative tillage, nutrient depletion, remote sensing, soil potential

### **1. Introduction**

Degraded soil and less ecosystem services, which in turn promotes unsustainable agricultural development [1]. This is true even though intensive agriculture is crucial for meeting the world's growing food demand [2]. One of the most important anthropogenic activities that have had a substantial impact on soil health is the intensive use of farms and tillage practices. A key issue affecting the sustainability and productivity of the soil is the degradation of the soil's health brought on by

multiple-cropping systems and tillage. Tillage intensive cropping practices have deteriorated soil chemical, physical, and biological characteristics and decreased soil organic carbon (SOC) levels [3]. Soil ecosystems to function and perform sustainably, it is essential to safeguard and improve soil function and health [4, 5]. It is possible to establish whether diverse soil management strategies have the necessary effectiveness for soil functions and productivity if multiple soils attributes and processes are merged into a single estimate value of soil health [6, 7]. The effect of the tillage system on soil characteristics must be taken into account in order to maintain soil fertility and assess the sustainability of agricultural systems [8–10]. By using a system of soil minimal tillage, the amount of larger vegetal leftovers (minimum 30%) that are left at the soil surface and in the upper 10–20 cm layers of the soil, in various phases of decomposition, shows an increasing tendency. Through the use of minimal systems, humus determination after 4 years shows an increasing trend, with an increase of up to about 0.41%. Conservative agriculture impacted on organic carbon accumulates in soil at a rate between 0.27 and 1.10 tha−1 year−1 [11–15] which ultimately improve the soil health. Strategic tillage is a practice in agriculture that involves the targeted and purposeful manipulation of soil through mechanical means to achieve specific objectives. It encompasses various techniques used for soil preparation before planting and for managing soil conditions after planting. Tillage tools are employed to bring about desired effects such as pulverization, cutting, or movement of the soil. The primary goals of strategic tillage are to enhance soil structure, control weeds, manage crop residues, improve water intake and storage, facilitate root development, and promote optimal growing conditions for crops [16].
