Soil properties and crop yields after INM practices

Maintenance of soil health is an essential pre-requisite for sustaining agricultural productivity. The continuous cropping coupled with low and imbalanced fertilizer use results in the deterioration of the native soil fertility and poses a serious threat to long term sustainability of the crop production. This situation can possibly be retrieved only through combined use of all sources of plant nutrients and by taking appropriate steps to increase the nutrient use efficiency. Integrated nutrient management (INM) is presently a seriously thought concept for proper plant growth, together with effective crop, water, soil, land and pest and disease managements critical for agriculture over the long term. At present, much attention is given to the integrated use of organic and mineral nutrition for meeting the economic needs of farmers as well as for sustainability in terms of productivity and soil fertility. Thus, considering it of paramount significance, an attempt has been made, in this book, to provide relevant information on the effect of integrated nutrient management on soil properties and crop yields in rice-niger sequence.