Site Specific Nutrient Management Approaches in Cereal Crops

Growing concerns about impaired soil health, declining productivity growth and decreasing factor productivity or nutrient-use efficiency (NUE) are compelling the farmers to use higher levels of fertilizers during last two decades, which are now posing a serious threat to food security, agricultural sustainability, soil and environmental health in the world. Knowing the required nutrients for all stages of growth and understanding the soil's ability to supply those needed nutrients is critical to profitable crop production. When N application is not synchronized with crop demand, nitrogen losses from the soil-plant system are large, leading to low use efficiency of Nitrogen fertilizer. When managed inefficiently, a large portion of the applied N is lost and create associated environmental problems. It is high time to develop site specific nutrient management (SSNM) technologies which are able to make synergy with crop-soil nutrient dynamics. SSNM aims to apply nutrients at optimal rates and times to achieve high profit for farmers, with high efficiency of nutrient use by crops across spatial and temporal scales; thereby preventing leakage of excess nutrient to the environment.