In the series of programs being organized under "AzadiKaAmritMahotsav", an online farmer seminar on "Fertilizer Management in Soybean for Balanced Nutrition" was organized by ICAR-Indian Institute of Soybean Research, Indore on 20th June. A total of 400 participants, including scientists, officers and progressive farmers of KrishiVigyanKendras and Agriculture Department of the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana, participated in this this seminar webcasted through Zoom platform as well as YouTube Channel of the institute.
At the outset, Dr B.U. Dupare, the Principal Scientist of the Institute, in his brief welcome address, explained about the importance of nutritional management in soybean crop, being cultivated in Central India since last 50 years but farmers have neglected the application of proper nutritional dose resulting in deterioration in productivity. Therefore, it is important to supply nutrition through combnation of organic as well as inordganic sources.
During the event, the Acting Director of the institute, Dr. Nita Khandekar, mainly emphasised on dissemination of knowledge and information to adopt management of balanced fertilizers along with importance of micronutrients.
The speaker of the seminar, Dr SD Billore, Principal Scientist (Agronomy) of the Institute, deliberated about the importance of balanced nutrition in soybean and cautioned about the negative consequences of imbalanced fertilizers application. He also told if one element is applied in large quantity, the desired benefits are not reflected because of deficiency of other major elements. He also said that if quantity of fertilizer is to be reduced, instead of reducing any one element, the quantity of all the major elements like nitrogen, phosphorus, potash and sulfur should also be reduced. He briefed that soybean crop requires 20:60:40:20 kg/ha Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potash and Sulphur which is recommended for soybean crop. This can be supplied through three fertilizer sources like (1) Urea 56 kg + 375 kg super phosphate and 67 kg. Murate of Potash or (2) DAP 125 kg + 67 kg Murate of Potash and 25 kg/ ha BentonateSulfur OR (3) Complex Fertilizer 12:32:16 @200 kg + 25 kg/ ha BentonateSulfur / 20:20:13 @300 kg +25 kg/ ha BentonateSulfur.
The seminar also included question-answer session to address the queries raised by the farmers. The programme was concluded with the vote of thanks proposed by Dr. Savita Kolhe.
