Improvement in productivity and economics of major food production systems of India through balanced dose of nutrients

Abstract

Increasing the nutrient use efficiency in major food production systems has always been a major concern because of escalating costs of production of crops, especially with regard to nutrient management. 'Researcher- designed farmer managed trials' were conducted during 2013-14 through farmer participatory research covering the major food production systems in India. A total of 144 trials in rice-rice, 156 in rice-wheat, 48 in rice-green gram and 60 in maize- wheat systems were conducted with 7 treatments. Across the various National Agricultural Research Project zones and cropping systems, farmers applied 29%, 25%, 71% and 100% lower level of N, P2O5, K2O and micronutrients respectively, than the recommended dose. Application of recommended dose of NPK + deficient micronutrients in all the systems recorded higher yield over farmer package. Balanced application of recommended NPK + deficit micronutrients gave additional yield. The increase in agronomic efficiency (AE) of nitrogen (two times on an average), phosphorus (45%) and potassium (60%), partial factor productivity and relative response was also observed with the balanced application compared to N, NP and NK alone. Higher increase of AE of N and P was observed in rice-rice system while AE of K was observed in rice-wheat system. Increase in net returns was found to be 24.9%, 63.3%, 27.4% and 92.2% with the application of NPK + deficient micronutrients over farmer practice in rice-rice, rice- wheat, rice-green gram and maize-wheat systems respectively, whereas the increase in cost of cultivation due to addition of P, K and micronutrients was found to be only 4.8%, 7.3%, 13.0% and 17.9% for the respective systems.