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SOIL FERTILITY AND PLANT NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT

Rajendra Prasad, Yashbir Singh Shivay
  • Country of Origin:

  • Imprint:

    NIPA

  • eISBN:

    9789391383701

  • Binding:

    EBook

  • Number Of Pages:

    216

  • Language:

    English

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The narrative in the book is brief and to the point in a simple and easy to understand language, demanding least possible time of students. Also at the end of each chapter a few questions of varying kind are provided to recapitulate the main points.  The present book discusses the fundamentals of soil fertility conditions and the reactions that various plant nutrients undergo in Indian environmental conditions and fulfill the plant need.

0 Start Pages

Preface This book has been written to cover the contents of the Post-Graduate course on ‘Soil Fertility and Nutrient Management’ offered by the departments of Agronomy and Soil Science at the state agricultural universities in India and at the ICAR–Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. The narrative in the book is brief and to the point in a simple and easy to understand language, demanding least possible time of students. A few important references are provided in each chapter for further reading. Also at the end of each chapter a few questions of varying kind are provided to recapitulate the main points. This book is intended for preparing the Post-graduate students for their university examinations, competitive examinations and interviews. It is short and permits revision in a short time. Although written for Post-Graduate students in Agronomy and Soil Science in India, this book should be equally useful to students in neighbouring countries and to Agronomists and Soil Scientists in the Fertilizer industry in the country as a handy guide book for plant nutrient management. We have made an attempt to include some excellent data generated by the Agronomists and Soil Scientists in India and neighbouring countries, while discussing different topics and an author index is provided at the end.

 
1 Soils as the Medium for Crop Production

LAND VERSUS SOIL Land is a part of Earth’s surface that is not covered by water. It is used for agriculture, building houses, of?ce buildings, schools, hospitals, roads, railroads and even water canals. Land is measured by area [length (l) × width (w)] and the units are square meters (m2), square centimeters (cm2) etc. On the other hand, soil is Earth’s crust, which could vary from a few centimeters to a few meters in thickness (depth), needs a measure of volume [length (l) × width (w) × depth (d)] and the units are cubic meters (m3), cubic centimeters (cm3) etc. Soil is thus a three-dimensional natural body on Earth’s surface that provides anchorage to growing plants/ trees and shelter to soil biota and is responsible for the storage of water and plant nutrients, which are essential for crop production. In addition, it helps in the biodegradation of soil pollutants and puri?cation of ground water, the major source of drinking water in the world. Soil feeds all living beings on Earth and its degradation is one of the reasons for inadequate human nutrition

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2 Historical aspects of Soil Fertility

INTRODUCTION In biology, fertility is de?ned as capacity to produce off-springs; however, in Soil Science a ?ne difference is made between a fertile and a productive soil. Soil Productivity is the ability of a soil to produce a crop using the entire spectrum of its physical, chemical and biological attributes, while Soil Fertility refers to the capacity of a soil to supply all essential plant nutrients in the desired amounts. Thus, soil fertility management is basically the nutrient management. To put it in simple words, a productive soil is always fertile, while a fertile soil may not be productive for a variety of factors, such as lack of adequate moisture in drier regions or lack of adequate air due to water-logging for most upland crops. Of late, a term ‘ Soil Health’ has been introduced. Soil Health is an assemblage of chemical, physical and biological parameters that closely relate to native or acquired production capacity and sustenance of ecologically important regulatory role (Katyal et al., 2016). It is measured against prede?ned parameters of soil’s status of fertility, compact ability, erodibility and biology. This again tends to relate soil fertility to nutrient content, availability and management.

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3 Essential and Beneficial Plant Nutrients

German chemist Justus Freiherr von Liebig (1803–1873), Professor at the University of Geissen and the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Joseph Dieudonne’ Boussingault (1801–1887), Professor at the University of Lyon and later Chair, Conservatoires des Artes et Matier in Paris are to be credited for analyzing the plants and coming with the idea that plants absorbed nitrogen and other mineral nutrients from the soil for their growth. D.I. Arnon and P.R. Stout, Plant Physiologists and Plant nutritionists at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, grew plants by hydroponics using pure chemical compounds and established following 3 criteria for the essentiality of nutrients for plant growth

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4 Carbon, Soil organic Matter and Carbon Sequestration

All life on planet Earth is carbon centered; hereditary characters are controlled by DNA and RNA, growth by proteins and activities by energy from carbohydrates and fats – all these are carbon compounds. Not only this, but the life also ends as carbon compounds CO2 or CH4, depending on aerobic or anaerobic decomposition. Incidentally soil fertility also depends very much on soil organic carbon (SOC). In ancient days, farmers used to apply manure to maintain soil fertility and even now, urea, the nitrogen fertilizer used in the largest amounts, is a carbon compound. All living forms on the Earth including all plant and animal species and their activities are a part of global carbon cycle. The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the earth.

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5 Soil Hydrogen, oxygen and Water

SOIL WATER Soil water and oxygen share the pore space in soil and generally the oxygen content is determined by the water content, which is added by irrigation or rains and then keeps on changing due to evapotranspiration. Water is the vehicle by which most nutrients move from the soil to root surface. But for the lowland rice, nutrients are most available to plants at ?eld capacity moisture (about 0.3 atmosphere soil water tension) and the availability decreases as the moisture content decreases to wilting point (about 15 atmosphere tension). That is why rainwater or irrigation increases nutrient availability, while extremely dry condition decreases it. There is thus a signi?cant interaction between water and nutrient availability in soil (Singh et al., 2014). In a study in India (Singh et al., 1980) the yield of wheat was signi?cantly affected by irrigation water and nitrogen treatments; maximum yield was obtained with irrigation at 50% available soil water in 60 cm soil depth and 120 kg ha –1 nitrogen addition. A study on wheat at Delhi (Kumar et al., 2015) very well shows the effect of irrigation water on yield and uptake of nutrients (NPK) (Table 5.1).

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6 Soil Nitrogen and Nitrogen Cycle

Introduction Nitrogen constitutes 78% of the atmospheric gases and there is about 75,000 Mg N on each hectare of land. However, 99% of the atmospheric N is as N2 and is inert and non-reactive, while the rest 1% or even less is the reactive-N. Reactive-N is linked with H, O and C and is responsible for the creation and sustenance of all life on the planet Earth. Nitrogen is the key nutrient that separates proteins from carbohydrates and fats, the three major macronutrients for humans. As a component of proteins, N is present in DNA and RNA, which carry the hereditary characters and then as the major constitute of the body muscles of humans (and animals). Plant growth and crop production are also very much dependent on the adequate availability of N in soil.

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7 Fertilizer Nitrogen Management and its Environmental Implications

Fertilizer N has been the key input in increasing cereal production throughout the world. In India, it made possible to achieve the yield potential of high-yielding dwarf varieties of wheat that led to ‘Green Revolution in 1968’. Nitrogen fertilization also increases protein content in wheat grains (Rajeswara Rao and Prasad, 1987) and leads to increased production of proteins in cereals (Prasad and Shivay, 2015). Cereal production in India increased from 42.4 million tonnes (Mt) in 1950–51 to 259.6 Mt in 2017–18, while fertilizer N application increased from 0.05 Mt to 16.96 Mt. However, the average agronomic ef?ciency of N (AEn) in India for cereals is only 9.5 kg grain kg–1 N (Sharma and Batra, 2011) as compared to global average of 24 kg grain kg–1 N for maize, 22 kg grain kg–1 N for rice and 18 kg grain kg–1 N for wheat (Ladha et al., 2005). Besides this, more disturbing is the fact that in irrigated areas the AEn declined from 13.4 to 3.4 kg grain kg–1 N during 1970–2005 (Biswas and Sharma, 2006). This is due to poor N management. Bulk of fertilizer N is applied broadcast on surface in most crops.

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8 Soil and Fertilizer Phosphorus

As compared to total N soil total P is present in much smaller amounts in soil; it is roughly about 10% of total N. Further, while N in soil is in the largest amount in surface 0 to 15 cm layer, soil P may be the same or in larger amounts in the sub-soil. Again, organic P constitutes only a small portion of total P. Thus, the Chemistry of soil P is generally centered on inorganic P. Total and organic P in some Indian soils is given in Table 8.1; hill soils had the highest and the desert soils the least total as well as organic P. FRACTIONS OF INORGANIC P All P in soils has originated from apatites [3 (Ca3 (PO4)2.Ca×2, where ×2 could be F, Cl, (OH) or CO3). Large deposits of apatites form phosphate rocks, which are the major materials for making phosphate fertilizers. As the soil weathering proceeds, P in apatite reacts with Al, Fe and other cations and forms compounds of different solubility. A knowledge of these can help in understanding the P-supplying capacity of soils. A number of chemical extractants and resins are used for determining different fractions. In general, 7 fractions of inorganic soil P are mentioned. These are: saloid-P (soluble and loosely bound P extractable by NH4Cl), labile P (determined by using anion-exchange resins), Al-P (NH4F extractable), Fe-P (NaOH extractable), Ca-P (H2SO4 or HCl extractable), reductant-soluble- P (CDB or sodium citrate-sodium dithionite-sodium bicarbonate extractable) and occluded P (CTB followed by NaOH extractable)

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9 Soil and Fertilizer Potassium

Out of the three primary plant nutrients (NPK), potassium (K) is taken up by crop plants in the largest amount, yet as compared to N and P, only a tiny fraction of it goes in the grain or seed. For example, Shivay et al. (2015) reported from a study on rice that about 20 kg N, 6 kg P (13.7 kg P2O5) and 46 kg K (55.2 kg K2O) was taken up by the crop to produce each Mg or tonne (1,000 kg) of rice kernel; however, only 4.3% of K taken up by the crop was found in the rice kernel as compared to 44% of N and 66% of P taken up by the crop. Some information on N, P and K removed per tonne of grain/ seed for some crops is given in Table 9.1.

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10 Secondary nutrients

Secondary nutrients is a triad of three essential plant nutrients namely, Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg) and Sulphur (S). Of these three, Ca and Mg are taken up by plants as cations, while S is taken up as anion SO4 2–. Among the secondary plant nutrients, sulphur is emerging as a major plant-nutrient de?ciency in crops grown in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, spread over 13 million ha in Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh (Khurana et al., 2008). From the Indian point of view, S de?ciency has emerged in a large part of the country and needs to be attended. Uptake of Mg and S by some crops is given in Table 10.1.

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11 Micronutrients

There are nine essential micronutrients, namely, iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), boron (B), molybdenum (Mo), chlorine (Cl), vanadium (V) and nickel (Ni). Out of these, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu and Ni (Dominic et al., 1978) are taken up by plants in their ionic form X2+, Mo as MoO2-, chlorine as Cl– form and boron as boric acid (H3BO3) or as its ionic form B (OH)4 –. The absorption of vanadium by plants has received only limited attention (Lepp et al., 1983); it may be absorbed as cation V or vanadyl (VO2+) and anion vanadate (VO4 3–). Bulk of the information is available on Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu, because of the acceptability of the single DTPA (Diethylene triamine pentaacetic acid)–CaCl2 extraction test of Lindsay and Norvell (1978) for availability of all these four nutrients followed by their estimation on Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS). Available B is estimated by hot 0.15 M CaCl2 extraction method (Saha and Singh, 1997). Molybdenum data base is poor, because its determination is dif?cult and Mo de?ciency in crops has not been much noticed in India. Chloride is available in plenty in irrigation water and soil in India and has not received much attention in India.

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12 Zinc

Internationally maize (Zea mays) and citrus (Citrus sp.) are reported to largely suffer from Zn de?ciency, for which these are considered as marker plants. Zinc de?ciency in maize results in pale or whitish top young leaves and the de?ciency is referred to as 'white bud' (Camberato and Maloney, 2012). In citrus, Zn de?ciency results in ‘rosette’ (cluster of stiff leaves at the end of young shoots) formation (Brennan, 1993). Zinc de?ciency in India was ?rst reported in rice by Nene (1966) at the Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, and given the name ‘khaira’ disease due to dark-brown-coloured spots resembling kattha (Acacia catechu extract used in paan – the betel leaves) on the leaves of zinc de?cient plants. Soon All India Coordinated Project on Micronutrients was launched by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) with headquarters at the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, which was later shifted to the Indian Institute of Soil Science, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. About half of the cultivated soils in the India are de?cient in available zinc. Zinc de?ciency is most in Maharashtra and Karnataka and rice-growing states of north and northeast (Table 12.1). A good response of cereals to Zn fertilization has been reported (Rattan et al., 2008).

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13 Boron

Boron (B) de?ciency has been realized as the second most important micronutrient constraint in crop production after that of Zn in the world (Ahmed et al., 2012). However, in Nepal, B de?ciency is more wide-spread than Zn de?ciency, as 80 to 90% of soil samples were de?cient in B, 20 to 50% in Zn and 10 to 15% in Mo (Anderson, 2007). In India, B de?ciency has increased from 2% of the soil samples de?cient in B in 1980s (Katyal and Vlek, 1995) to 52% soil samples in 2000s (Singh, 2012). Total B content in Indian soils varies from 7 to 630 mg kg–1 soil (Kanwar, 1976); being the highest in arid regions of the country and the lowest in wet humid regions of the country (Behera et al., 2009; Prasad et al., 2014). Boron de?ciency is most in the heavy rainfall areas of Western Ghats of Maharashtra, Karnataka and the eastern states of Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh states of India (Fig.13.1). The wide-spread de?ciency of B in India can be seen from the fact that B fertilization recorded the highest bene?t : cost (B : C) ratio in rice–wheat cropping system at Palampur (Himachal Pradesh), Ludhiana (Punjab), Faizabad, Modipuram and Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), Pantnagar (Uttarakhand) and in rice–rice cropping system at Maruteru (Andhra Pradesh), Karjat (Maharashtra) and Jorhat (Asom) (Singh and Goswami, 2014). Response of wheat to B fertilization is also reported from Bangladesh (Halder et al, 2007).

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14 Organic Manures

Before the discovery of chemical fertilizer in early 20th century, organic manures and growing of legumes were the ways of replenishing soil fertility. The only other way was leaving land fallow for a few years before its re-cultivation, a practice followed in shifting cultivation (jhuming) (Garbyal, 1999). This was also true for India, where although the ?rst single superphosphate plant was set up in 1906 in Ranipet (Tamil Nadu), the real use of fertilizer started with the manufacture of urea, the ?rst plant for which was set up in 1959 at Sindri (Bihar) (Tandon, 2014). Organic manures could meet crop-nutrient needs in early days because the average grain yield of most cereals was about 1.5–2.0 t ha–1, while the average yield of pulses was 0.5–0.75 t ha–1. However, the crop production scenario changed rapidly after the introduction of dwarf, high-yielding varieties of wheat from Mexico, which led to the “Green Revolution” (Swaminathan, 2013). This was followed by the development of semi-dwarf, high-yielding varieties of rice and hybrids of maize, sorghum and pearl millet. These varieties/ hybrids of cereals needed 100–150 kg N ha–1 in one growing season, and this could be met only by urea or other N fertilizers; organic manures had no chance and their use became almost nil over a period of next 25 years or so. Well-off young farmers cannot even think of making manure heaps or compost pits, the job is too hard and not a clean one. However, what is ignored is the fact, that organic manures not only supply plant nutrients but also build up soil organic matter, which improves soil physical properties, helps in storing moisture and is the elixir of life for the soil biota (Lal, 2014). A large numbers of reports are available on the effect of adding organic manures and crop residues on improving soil physical (Hati et al., 2007; Brar et al., 2015) and chemical and biological properties of soil (Prasad et al., 1999; Prasad and Mishra, 2001;Sharma et al., 2009; Prasad et al. 2014). Thanks for the organic farming (Prasad, 2005), the interest in organic manures and composts has increased in India and it is now a sought after material. However, it has not entered the main stream of crop production.

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15 Legumes and Soil Fertility

Soil-rejuvenation power of legumes in crop rotations has been known in several parts of the world since ages. It is mentioned in the Indian agriculture of the Chalcolithic period (ca 1000 BC) (Raychaudhuri and Mira, 1993), in Chinese agriculture in the Han dynasty (ca 2nd century) (Hsu, 1980) and in Roman agriculture (White, 1970). Legumes can be ?tted in cropping systems in India in a number of ways, such as, a crop in a cropping system, a catch crop in an intensive cropping system, an intercrop and as a green manure. A brief discussion on these follows.

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16 Making Fertilizer Recommendations Based on Soil Tests and Plant Tissue Testing

Fertilizer recommendations are generally made on the basis of soil test. Recommendations of fertilizer for top-dressing are best made on tissue testing. SOIL TEST A number of approaches have been adopted to increase the precision of soil-test values in making fertilizer recommendations. Four most important ones are discussed. Low-Medium-High Approach Making fertilizer recommendations based on soil test for a nutrient involves conducting a large number of ?eld experiments on soils similar to those which are intended for making recommendations. For an individual nutrient (say P for example) experiments are conducted with graded doses of P on a crop for which the fertilizer recommendations are to be made. Thus, agronomic experiments are to be conducted for each crop on each kind of soil. The response curve can then be divided into three sections: a, low soil-test value and high response to fertilizer zone; b, medium soil-test value and medium response to fertilizer zone; and c, high soil-test values and no response to fertilizer zone. In India, this was done

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17 Integrated Nutrient Management

The introduction of high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice, the development of intensive cereal–cereal rotations (rice–wheat, rice–rice, hybrid maize–wheat), application of high doses of N (above 100 kg N ha–1 to each crop) without adequate P and K application, increased use of high-analysis fertilizer (urea and diammonium phosphate in place of ammonium sulphate and superphosphate) and ignoring the application of organic manures led to heavy depletion of P, K, S, Zn and other plant nutrients, which led to wide-spread de?ciencies of P, S and Zn in Indian soils. These de?ciencies of nutrients led to focus on integrated nutrient management.

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18 Environmental Implication of Fertilizers

Plant nutrients are important for increased production of food for the ever-increasing world population. Of the plant nutrients, primary nutrients N, P and K are applied to ?elds each season in fairly large amounts. In addition to increasing crop yields, they also impact the environment. This is briefly discussed in this chapter; only main points are made here. NITROGEN Nitrogen is blamed the most for environmental degradation. It contributes to eutrophication of inland and sea-waters, enrichment of air with NH3 and N2O and even with global warming. However, it is almost impossible to grow more food without additional nitrogen. It is estimated that by 2050 about 250 million tonnes (MT) of fertilizer nitrogen may be needed to meet global increased food demands as against an estimated current consumption of 116 MT

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19 End Pages

Subject Index a Air (soil air) 49 Aridisols 10 Agricultural systems and soil fertility 15 Acid soils-suitable crops, 53 Alkaline-suitable crops 53 Al?sols soils 10 Agronomic ef?ciency of N 68 Ammoni?cation 58 Ammonia volatilization 61 Apparent recovery of N 67

 
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