Dear Manoj,

Please read the PDF attachment.

Best of Luck

Dear Manoj,

Please read the PDF attachment.

Best of Luck

Dr Dabi , yes i feel so , simply because of much lower organic carbon content of soil, on an average  , including much debated IGP ( considered to be the cereal bowl of the country). 

Dear Dr. Arvind, thank your for the reference.

This is an article of year 1936. Further, Green Revolution took place which entirely changed nutrient status in Indian soils.

Regards,

MKD

Yes, most of the Indian soils are deficient in nitrogen. I have experience in Indian Arid Zone and more than 90% of the Arid Zone Soils are deficient in Nitrogen.

Dear Manoj,

Please read this article of year 2010.

Good luck

Thanks, Dr. Arvind. This is an excellent article.

Do we have spatially and temporally  distributed data on available nitrogen , regardless of soil type or cropping sequence or agrocological zones..? This could help us explore , how the mining or buildup of different nutrients are taking place , with possible emphasis on both major soil types( at order or great group level) as well as cropping sequence..

I appreciate the ability  of Dr.Aravind  Singh to unearth good papers. Prof.Mirchandani article of 1936 is worth reading.It nicely covered the four basic aspects of nitrogen, status,storage or enriching, losses and availability. Dr.Pathak 's comparison of NPK status in three periods across the country is also interesting.Latest status of NPK and micronutrients can be seen in  the website of IISS, Bhopal.

Yes, Indian Soils are deficient in Nitrogen. Continuous application of Inorganic fertilizer or no-fertilizer without addition of FYM caused depletion of N in the soil. The general practice followed by the farmers in eastern region is that, they apply only DAP and MOP only, no urea application. The organic carbon content in the eastern plateau region is 0.3-0.4%, very low status. Similarly pointed out by Dr. Tarafdar in Arid region soil. 

Can we give one  signature statement  about the behaviour of Indian soils , with regard to a single nutrient ..? Soils of arid region are  invariably an exception ., what about soils of humid /sub-humid tropical  regions represented predominantly  by Alfisols and Ultisols..?

The sub-humid tropical regions comprising the eastern plateau and hills having alfisols are deficient in Nitrogen

Mr.Manoj and other colleagues,we need not much worry about nitrogen status of our soils as we can not much improve N status  of soils and also we have to apply N fertilizers or organic manures to meet the  crop uptake requirement of N(which is again yield dependent).Nitrogen fertilization level goes with yield level desired, irrespective of soil N status.As per Dr.Pathak's paper only the Himachal pradesh soils have high N status,while Assam,Gujarat and Tripur soils have medium status .Among the Northern states, the fertilizer use is the lowest in H.P.Prof.Mirchandani's 80 years old paper deals with all the important aspects of N management as mentioned by me earlier.As we can  not forgo or reduce N fertilizer use especially in cereal crops, sugarcane and cotton,only possibility is to utlize the residual nutrients in immediate or following crop to arrest losses of nitrate N through leaching or gaseous  emissions.

Indian soils are practically deficient in N, OC content is also relatively very low. If we compare with the soils of Bangladesh, the values are very high in Bangladesh and factor productivity of rice in all the three seasons wrt N is very high there and usually the farmers in Bangladesh apply lower N than Indian farmers. I agree with Dr Rao that we have to enhance apparent recovery efficiency, more specifically through sub-soil layers by applying other nutrients in balanced proportion as well tune the other inputs as water and adopt suitable agronomic management practices to get the benefit of applied N in the soil. The main reason of yield stagnation/decline is primarily due to under/no application of specific micro/secondary nutrients.

 The question of C/N sequestration is also to trough due to fact that most of our soils arw in tropical subtropical regions where the degradation of OM is faster

Again the question of customized fertilizers or fortified fertilizers become important for countries like India

regards

The level of soil nitrogen is very much associated with soil carbon level.

When the soil Carbon is adequate and legumes are used in the farming system there is no need that soil will be necessarily deficient in soil Nitrogen.

Since most soils are deficient in Carbon and are not optimized for legume in rotation or organic amendment there is an artificial deficiency which is prevalent but not inevitable or a real deficiency in Nitrogen.

Since our atmosphere is almost 80% Nitrogen there is no compelling reason that the soil should be deficient if proper management was employed to get the soil stock levels at adequate range. 

If your soil test at maize 15 cm high shows more than 25 ppm Nitrate your soil will be adequate for an excellent maize crop. Since Nitrogen and water cycling are dependent on Carbon this element controls a lot of productive capacity of the farming system. 

Since almost half of the Indian soils are considered deficient in Zinc and possibly other micronutrients this is a venue to get much better results with legumes and optimize the cropping system without more costly inputs with acidifying effects and ability to compromise the retention of soil organic matter. 

When legumes are optimized it is more feasible to get optimized cereal yields and the cereal by itself cannot provide optimize human and animal diets.