On-farm Assessment of Site Specific Nutrient Management in Rainfed areas of Telangana

Fertilizer use immensely contributes to higher crop productivity and ensuring food security around the globe, but excess application of nitrogenous fertilizers resulted in negative environmental externalities in the world. Thus assessing imbalances in chemical fertilizer use is vital for environmental sustainability, and this on-farm trial was conducted to study the pattern of nutrient imbalances due to imbalanced chemical fertilizer application. This on-farm assessment of Site Specific Nutrient Management (SSNM) through yield target approach was conducted with different test crops viz., rice, maize, ragi, groundnut, sesamum, green gram, black gram, jonna, bajra and castor in Nagarkurnool district during rabi season. The results revealed that the targeted yield prescription equations with SSNM approach increased percent yield as 35.67 in rice, 28.80 in ragi, 34.24 in maize, 33.70 in groundnut, 27.62 in sesamum, 23.14 in green gram, 21.32 in black gram, 23.60 in bajra, 26.76 in jonna, 29.54 in castor crops to ensure higher seed yield, as well as nutrient response ratio to the applied fertilizers over the farmers’ practice. The seed yield from the pre-fixed target yields were achieved within ± 15% yield deviation at all the locations of farmer fields. The targeted yield prescription models along with SSNM fertilizer recommendations were more precise to achieve the targeted yield of various crops grown in rainfed areas of Telangana for higher profits by conserving soil health.