Various Approaches for Nutrient Management in Rice

Abstract

Rice is the most important food crop, providing one in three people on earth with a daily diet. The production of rice in India is a significant food safety factor. Rice has been very important for successful nutrient management since along with high levels of rice production. Blanket usage of the fertiliser contributes to over fertiliser or to an insufficient nutrient balance for their soils, as well as adverse environmental effects such as nutrient mining or surface and groundwater contamination due to variable indigenous nutrient supply in the different areas. Identification of proper nutrient management practise is the foremost need to improve the production of rice and increase farm profitability in case of rice farmers. The review shows different approaches of nutrient management for production sustainability of rice.

Full text

How to cite this article: Swamy, G.V.V.S.N., Sairam, M., Shankar, T.,
Maitra, S., Mohapatra, S. and Sahu, S. (2020).Various Approaches for
Nutrient Management in Rice (Oryza sativa L.). Agro Economist - An
International Journal, 7(2): 123-127 (Special Issue), November 2020.
Source of Support: None; Conflict of Interest: None
Agro Economist - An International Journal
Citation: AE: 7(2): pp. 123-127 (Special Issue), November 2020
Various Approaches for Nutrient Management in
Rice (Oryza sativa L.)
G.V.V.S.N. Swamy, Masina Sairam, Tanmoy Shankar*, Sagar Maitra,
Sameer Mohapatra and Sailasuta Sahu
M.S. Swaminathan School of Agriculture, Centurion University of Technology and Management, Odisha, India
*Corresponding author: tanmoy@cutm.ac.in
ABSTRACT
Rice is the most important food crop, providing one in three people on earth with a daily diet. The production of
rice in India is a signicant food safety factor. Rice has been very important for successful nutrient management
since along with high levels of rice production. Blanket usage of the fertiliser contributes to over fertiliser or to
an insufcient nutrient balance for their soils, as well as adverse environmental effects such as nutrient mining
or surface and groundwater contamination due to variable indigenous nutrient supply in the different areas.
Identication of proper nutrient management practise is the foremost need to improve the production of rice and
increase farm protability in case of rice farmers. The review shows different approaches of nutrient management
for production sustainability of rice.
Keywords: Rice, nutrient mining, nutrient management, production sustainability
Rice is the most important food crop, providing one
in three people on earth with a daily diet. More than
two billion people in Asia alone get from rice and its
derivatives 60 to 70% of their energy consumption.
West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand
and Tamil Nadu are the largest rice-growing regions.
The production of rice in India is a significant
food safety factor. However, the sustainability of
the existing production systems is not very well
known, especially systems under minimum practise
with triple cropping. The predominant systems in
India include rice-based cropping systems. After
the Green Revolution, the use of fertilisers is one
of the main factors to increase rice production
continuously. Rice has been very important for
successful nutrient management since along with
high levels of rice production. Blanket usage of
the fertiliser contributes to over fertiliser or to an
insufcient nutrient balance for their soils, as well
as to adverse environmental effects such as nutrient
mining or surface and groundwater contamination
due to variable indigenous nutrient supply in the
different areas (Adhikari et al. 1999). In addition, the
efciency of fertiliser usage is also lower and output
is eventually reduced. The efciency of fertilisers
with nitrogen in Asia is only 20-30 per cent, and
in the rest of the world only 45 per cent and 20-30
per cent with potassium- and phosphorous usage
efciencies. A proper nutrient management will
achieve 75-80 percent of potential yield (Witt et
al. 1999). Management of nutrients helps to lower
fertiliser losses and to increase production and rice

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productivity (Singh et al. 2008). Identication of
proper nutrient management practise is the foremost
need to improve the production of rice and increase
farm protability in case of rice farmers (Marahatta et
al. 2017). In the review article, an initiative has been
taken to highlight the nutrient management practices
adopted in rice for production sustainability.
Nutrient Management approaches
In India rice is one of the majorly grown crop and
50% of the fertilizer is use in the paddy and wheat
cultivation. use of HYV’s and hybrids increased
the uses of fertilizer application, which became an
important role to increase agricultural production
and to feed the ever-growing Indian population (Jena
et al. 2020) There are many reasons of fertilizer losses
and low fertilizer use efciency viz. immobilization,
leaching, volatilization, de-nitrification and soil
xation etc. Nutrient use efciency can be improved
by adopting proper method of fertilizer application
with appropriate source, dose and time. There are
some approaches for fertilizer recommendation
which should be site specic and synchronous to
crop need to prevent losses and increases FUE.
Some modern approaches of nutrient management
are the uses of site specic nutrient management,
Leaf colour chart based nutrient management Soil
test crop response based nutrient management
Integrated Nutrient Management, Variable rate
fertilizer application using precision farming tools.
These approaches can denitely reduce fertilizer
application rate, environmental pollution and input
cost. These are improved strategies for sustainable
crop production.
Site Specic Nutrient Management
Site-specic nutrient management (SSNM) is a plant-
based solution that allows rice farmers to provide
vital nutrients to their crops optimally. Depending
on crop and soil management, historical use of
fertilisers, management of crop residues and organic
materials, and crop varieties and the optimal supply
of nutrients for rice can vary from eld to eld. The
SSNM approach therefore offers the principles and
recommendations to adapt nutrient management
activities to particular eld circumstances.
Rice plants removes much amount of fertilizers
from soil where precisely recharging of nutrients
to soil is lacking. Site specic nutrient management
is generally a plant to soil based approach to meet
nutrient requirements. This approach feeds based
on crop needs, area and season. Site specic nutrient
management helps in the judicial use of nutrients
without spoilage, by this we can increase the
Nutrient Use Efciency and protability. (Shankar
et al. 2014) quoted that usage of Site specic nutrient
management in rice during critical growth stages
leads to increase in plant height, LAI, dry matter,
yield parameters and yield. (Khurana et al. 2009)
recorded increase in yield of rice crop by 17%,
as well as protability by 14% (Singh et al. 2015).
For attaining soil health sustainability and getting
higher yields Site specic nutrient management is a
promising technique based up on NUE, indigenous
nutrient supply capacity and target yield (Das et
al. 2009). While comparing to conventional and
imbalanced fertilizer recommendation methods
Site specific nutrient management can helps in
improving the formulation of site-specic, balanced
fertilizer management strategies in rice. The SSNM
treatment gave the highest values of yield attributes
and yield of rice. Omission of –N,-P,-K,-Zn and
-S from SSNM treatment resulted in reduction in
yield attributes of rice. Similarly NPK Zn and S also
inuenced yield attributes of rice positively during
season and if omitted, a notable reduction in yield
attributes was observed which ultimately decreased
the yield (Nanjappa et al. 2013). The maximum grain
yield of TEJ (6.73 t/ha) and IR36 (4.19 t/ha) was
obtained with SSNM treatment. With ample dose
of (N+P+K+Zn+S) recorded significantly higher
yield than other treatments (omission –N,-P,-K,-
Zn,–S and control) from SSNM management point
of view (Singh et al. 2008) and (Khurana et al. 2008).
Enhancement of growth attributes, yield components
and yield were recorded with ample dose of N + P
+ K + S + Zn was applied as compared to control.
The ample dose of nutrient supplied in high yielding
rice increased grain yield by 22 % as compared to the
omission plot and also the same case for indigenous
rice variety (Shankar et al. 2014; Shankar et al. 2020).
Leaf colour chart (LCC) based nutrient
management
A leaf colour chart is a diagnostic tool which
is helpful for measurement of greenness i.e.

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photosynthetic activity of a plant through colour of
leaves which indicates the plants Nitrogen status (Ali
et al. 2017). LCC based nitrogen application increases
protability and productivity in transplanted rice.
With nitrogen application based on LCC value of
4 (4 splits; 132 kg N ha-1) Grain yield (60.70 q ha-1)
was obtained and also saving of fertilizer N (18-25
kg N ha-1 in transplanted rice). It is considered that
the LCC offers gigantic opportunities to increase N
use efciency, rice yield and net return for farmers
(Iqbal et al. 2016) LCC helped farmers to estimate
plant nitrogen demand, without compromising their
yield. The critical leaf colour has to be maintained
for optimal growth. LCC provides guidance when to
apply nitrogen fertilizer and how much quantity of
“N” is to be applied for getting better yield. (Maiti et
al. 2004) N topdressing can be practiced in the eld of
rice on the basis of LCC and SPAD values. Through
the use of LCC and SPAD, 20–42.5 and 27.5–47.5 kg
N ha–1 can be saved, respectively, over that of the
highest level of xed-timing N applications. Use
of LCC and SPAD is economically viable and cost
effective. (Lone et al. 2017) the ‘LCC 4 @ 20 kg N ha-
1’ treatment proved superior to all the treatments
in almost all the parameters. This was the treatment
that best synchronized the nitrogen supply with crop
nitrogen demand. The threshold LCC values are
known as those that simultaneously optimize grain
yield and nitrogen use efciency.
Soil test crop response (STCR) based nutrient
management
The STCR based fertilizer recommendations may
be popularized for higher production of rice and
wheat as well as higher efciency use of nutrients
so as to improvement of farmer’s economy. The
fertilizers may be calculated for lower/higher yields
targets depending upon the availability of inputs.
(Verma et al. 2015) an application of graded levels
of NPK fertilisers significantly influenced NPK
uptake, grain and straw yield of rice crop and also
inuenced the quality and nutrient status of soil,
Fertilizer recommendations based on the concept of
STCR are more quantitative, precise and meaningful
because combined use of soil and plant analysis is
involved in it (Shubha et al. 2018). Among nutritional
approaches and micronutrient supply across yield
targets, STCR approach and micronutrient supply
recorded higher grain yield (6878). Among the
three factors interaction, STCR + 8 t ha-1 yield target
+ micronutrient supply registered significantly
higher yield (7385). (Kumar et al. 2018) The STCR
technology was effective in changing attitude, skill
and knowledge of farmers. Soil test crop response
(STCR) based fertilizer recommendation is superior
over other nutrient management approaches in
terms of grain yield, and protability. It was also
concluded that production of more grain yield with
less fertilizer can be obtained in STCR based fertilizer
application comparison to the blanket application
and other approaches (Singh et al. 2018).
Integrated Nutrient Management (INM)
Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) in rice
production is extremely important. Many of our
problems (increased cost, decreased yields) with
decreasing productivity can be traced to an unsuitable
and inefcient use of nutrients. Inadequate nutrient
control has contributed to nutrient imbalances
in the earth with surplus nutrients, while other
nutrients have declined (Maurya et al. 2019). The
most logical principles for controlling long-term
soil fertility and productivity are integrated nutrient
supply systems (Rao et al. 2017). Usage of chemical
fertilizers and organic manures has been found
promising in arresting the decline trend in soil-
health and productivity through the correction of
marginal deciencies of some secondary and micro-
nutrients, fauna and micro-ora and their benecial
inuence on physical and biological properties of
soil. Integrated nutrient management system can
bring about equilibrium between degenerative
and restorative activities in the soil eco-system
(Upadhyay et al. 2011). This has revealed that the use
of combination of organic and inorganic fertilizers
resulted in consistent supply of nutrients by which
the maximum plant height was obtained. (Ram et al.
2020) stated that improved yields with integrated
nutrient management were due to instantaneous
and rapid supply of nutrients through chemical
fertilizers and steady supply through mineralization
of FYM for prolonged period. Organics along with
chemical fertilizers perhaps minimised the N loss
and increased availability throughout the crop
growth period through formation of organic-mineral
complexes. (Murali and Setty, 2001) revealed that
Grain yield increased with integrated nutrient

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management over 100% RDF was to the extent of 20
to 30 per cent. This might be due to the favourable
soil condition and synchronized release of nutrients
throughout the crop growth period. (Baishya et al.
2015) in his study at Nagaland Centre under sandy
loam soil conditions noticed that the treatment
combination of 100% RDF along with 2.5 tons
vermicompost has obtained highest grain yield that
may be due to better and timely nutrient availability
to the crop from the vermicompost as compared to
other sources of organic manure. (Khursheed et al.
2013) found that signicant increase in grain yield
of rice by 10.9, 21.8 and 28.5 % with the conjunctive
use of farm yard manure, vermicompost and
poultry manure with NPK respectively compared
to no manure treatment and NPK alone. Integrated
nutrient management practices can be adopted
by replacing 25 to 50% chemical fertilizers with
organic manures to improve soil health and maintain
sustainable yields in rice.
CONCLUSION
The review article described present approaches on
nutrient management in rice that can ensure soils
fertility and nutrient use efciency. In this regard,
precision nutrient management can be considered
as a wise practice in which a precise quantity of
nutrients is to be applied for a target yield. This can
further enable restoration of soil fertility, prevention
of nutrient and production sustainability of rice.
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