Sugarcane productivity and fertility in plant ratoon system under treated distillery effluent and inorganic fertilizers management

Abstract

Treated Distillery Effluent (TDE) generated through biomethanated distillery effluent was applied to arable land for augmenting agricultural production. The TDE contains considerable amount of organic matter and salt besides its high plant nutrients content. With this background, an attempt was made. Field experiments were conducted to study the long term effect of TDE and inorganic fertilizers on soil properties and yield of sugarcane in sandy loam soil during 2010-2011 and 2011-2012. The main plot treatments viz., TDE was applied at the rate of 1.25, 2.5, 3.75 and 5.0 lakh litres ha-1 for treatments were compared with control and the sub-plots viz., N, NP, NK, PK, NPK for fertilizer treatments were compared with control (no fertilizer). The results revealed that the application of TDE had significantly increased the cane yield and had left significantly higher organic carbon, alkaline KMnO4-N, 0.5 M NaHCO8-P and neutral normal ammonium acetate-K content (211, 21.6 and 414 kg ha-1) and exchangeable cations in the post harvest soil after the crop uptake. The TDE applied at 3.75 lakh L ha-1 along with NP (106.3 t ha-1) has resulted in higher yield without any adverse effect on soil properties. © 2014 Knowledgia Review, Malaysia.