Diagnosis of Nutrient Deficiencies in Crop Plants

The Department of Soil Science & Agricultural Chemistry has developed software for the identification of nutrient disorders in agricultural and horticultural crops utilizing the funds provided by the Department of Biotechnology (Bioinformatics), Government of India, New Delhi. Proper identification of nutrient deficiencies is essential in order to take up suitable remedial measures and to be able to sustain farm productivity. Visual diagnosis can be used as a valuable tool to identify nutrient deficiencies in the soil and suitable ameliorative measures can be taken up accordingly. In this software package, typical deficiency symptoms exhibited by the plants have photographed and catalogued using dichotomous keys in the identification of the maladies. It encompasses list of crops and nutrients that may be hyper-linked with deficiency symptoms and suitable recommendations. In addition, there is a tool bar exists wherein the user can describe the symptoms to enable them to get the diagnosis of the nutrient deficiency, and a set of recommendations to be adopted.