TY  - JOUR
N2  - Soil degradation in the semi-arid tropics (SAT) is mainly responsible for low crop and water productivity. In Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan states in India, the soil analyses of farmers' fields revealed widespread deficiencies of S (9?96%), B (17?100%) and Zn (22?97%) along with that of P (25?92%). Soil organic C was deficient in 7?84% fields indicating specifically N deficiencies and poor soil health in general. During on-farm evaluations in rainy seasons 2010 and 2011, the soil test based addition of deficient nutrient fertilizers as balanced nutrition (BN) increased crop yields by 6?40% (benefit to cost ratios of 0.81?4.28) through enhanced rainwater use efficiency. The integrated nutrient management (INM), however, decreased the use of chemical fertilizers in BN by up to 50% through on-farm produced vermicompost and recorded yields at par or more than BN with far better benefit to cost ratios (2.26?10.2). Soybean grain S and Zn contents improved with INM. Applied S, B, Zn and vermicompost showed residual benefits as increased crop yields for succeeding three seasons. Hence, results showed INM/BN was economically beneficial for producing more food, while leading to resilience building of SAT production systems.
AV  - restricted
KW  - soil degradation; micronutrients; vermicompost; productivity; resilience
A1  - Chander, G
A1  - Wani, S P
A1  - Sahrawat, K L
A1  - Kamdi, P J
A1  - Pal, C K
A1  - Pal, D K
A1  - Mathur, T P
TI  - Balanced and integrated nutrient management for enhanced and economic food production: case study from rainfed semi-arid tropics in India
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03650340.2012.761336
JF  - Archives of Agronomy and Soil Science
SP  - 1
Y1  - 2013///
ID  - icrisat6623
EP  - 16
SN  - 0365-0340
PB  - Taylor & Francis
ER  -