**4. Interrelation between the intervening period of rice-wheat cropping sequence and ET**

"Intervening period" is perhaps the most ignored period in the any crop rotation as scientists are trying to analyze the effects of applied treatments on the land and water productivity, which could be exploited for cultivating the intervening crops, viz*.* moong and other fodder crops [22–25]. Several investigations were carried out during intervening periods of wheat 2012–2013 and rice 2013; rice 2013 and wheat 2013–2014; wheat 2013–2014 and rice 2014 and rice 2014 and wheat 2014–2015 using time domain reflectometer, electronic tensiometer, soil thermometers (up to 0–10 cm) and mini-lysimeters to delineate soil moisture dynamics as affected by different establishment methods of rice and wheat sequence. Zero tilled wheat plots (ZTW) evaporates 7.6 and 12.8% more, retained 10.3 and 9.4% lower volumetric moisture content at 7.5 cm soil depths and reported to had 28, 18 and 18% and 21, 16 and 17% higher soil tension values at 10, 20 and 30 cm soil depths because of reported 2.2 and 2.1% higher soil temperature than the conventionally tilled (CT) wheat plots during intervening periods after wheat 2012–2013 and wheat 2013–2014. However, after rice 2013, ZT plots reported to conserve 4.0% higher moisture content because of reported 2.3% lesser soil temperature which evaporates 27.6% lesser after rice 2013. On an average, conventional tilled both wheat and direct seeded rice (CTW-DSRCT) plots had 14, 29 and 45% lower SWT values than the zero till wheat and zero till direct seeded rice (ZTW-DSRZT) plots after rice 2013. They also found that after rice in 2014, CTW-DSRZT plots conserved more soil moisture than ZTW-DSRZT, although an exception was found in CTW-DSRCT plots, but were nearly equally and effective for conserving the soil moisture CTW-DSRZT cropping system.
