Integrated nutrient management as a managerial tool for applying saline water in wheat crop cultivated under sub-tropic and semi-arid conditions of North-Western India

PurposeOne of the serious constraints for the integration of organics in soil fertility plans is the release and availability of nitrogen (N) to match the critical growth stages of a crop. The interplay between organic amendment characteristics and soil moisture conditions can significantly affect the nutrient release and availability, especially for dryland crops like wheat. In this study, the effects of integrated nutrient management strategies using diverse qualities of organic amendments on daily N mineralization and its availability to plants during the full growing season of the wheat crop were analyzed in a 10-year experiment.MethodsThe management included (1) F, inorganic fertilizers at 100% rate, compared to a reduced rate of inorganic fertilizers (55% N) supplemented with organic inputs via (2) GM, green manuring, (3) LE, legume cropping and its biomass recycling, (4) WS, wheat stubble retention, (5) RS, rice stubble retention, and (6) FYM, farmyard manure application, during the preceding rice season. Ion exchange resin (IER) membrane strips were used as plant root simulators to determine daily NH4+-N and NO3–-N availability in soil solution during the full wheat growing period.ResultsTotal available N for the full season was in the following order: GM (962 μg cm–2) > F (878 μg cm–2) > LE (872 μg cm–2) > FYM (865 μg cm–2) > RS (687 μg cm–2) > WS (649 μg cm–2). No significant differences were observed in NH4+-N availability throughout the cropping period as compared to NO3–-N which showed significant differences among management at critical crop growth stages.ConclusionLegume biomass incorporation (GM, LE) and farmyard manure (FYM) based management provided the most consistent supply equivalent to or even exceeding 100% inorganic fertilizers at several critical stages of growth, especially at tillering and stem elongation. Integration of organics in management increased nitrogen use efficiency 1.3–2.0 times, with cereal crop residue-based management having the highest efficiency followed by legume biomass incorporation.

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Nutrient Budgeting as Influenced by Integrated Nutrient Management in Wheat Crop

Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability ◽

10.5958/2320-642x.2021.00002.8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 14-20

Author(s):

Hanuman Prasad Parewa ◽

Janardan Yadav ◽

Vijay Singh Meena

Keyword(s):

Nutrient Management ◽

Wheat Crop ◽

Integrated Nutrient Management

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Comparative Performance of Integrated Nutrient Management between Composted Agricultural Wastes, Chemical Fertilizers, and Biofertilizers in Improving Soil Quantitative and Qualitative Properties and Crop Yields under Arid Conditions

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy10101503 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (10) ◽

pp. 1503

Author(s):

Nasser Al-Suhaibani ◽

Mostafa Selim ◽

Ali Alderfasi ◽

Salah El-Hendawy

Keyword(s):

Crop Production ◽

Nutrient Management ◽

Crop Yields ◽

Principal Component ◽

Agricultural Wastes ◽

Integrated Nutrient Management ◽

Qualitative Properties ◽

Chemical Fertilizers ◽

Comparative Performance ◽

Arid Conditions

The primary goal of integrated nutrient management (INM) strategies is to substitute a portion of chemical fertilizers with a more sustainable and environmentally safe organic compost in order to mitigate soil degradation, improve crop production, and protect the environment. Therefore, the present study was conducted to assess the impacts of different INM practices, namely full-dose NPK (T1), compost of cow manure at 5 t ha−1 (T2), compost of poultry manure at 5 t ha−1 (T3), compost of mixed sheep and camel manure at 5 t ha−1 (T4), 50% NPK combined with the mixture of the three types of composts at the rate of 5 t ha−1 (T5) or 10 t ha−1 (T6), and mixture of the three types of composts at the rate of 10 t ha−1 (T7), 15 t ha−1 (T8), or 20 t ha−1 (T9) with or without biofertilizers for each treatment on several physiochemical and biological proprieties of soil and final grain yield of field crops after 2 years of field-scale experiments. The results showed that all INM practices generally significantly (p < 0.05) improved the initial values of all tested soil physiochemical and biological proprieties, whereas improvement was more prominent for the plots treated with T5–T9, compared with those treated with T1–T4. Seed inoculation with biofertilizers also significantly (p < 0.05) increased different soil proprieties by 2.8–12.0%, compared to that of the non-inoculation treatment. Principal component analysis revealed that most soil chemical properties were closely associated with T5–T6 treatments, while most soil physical and biological properties appeared to be more related to T7–T9 treatments. Our results indicated that recycling agricultural wastes into new productive composts and integrating it into appropriate INM practices as shown in T5–T9 treatments may induce favorable changes in soil properties and improve crop production under arid conditions even in the short term.

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