Use of soil based inorganic fertilizer are affecting quality of environment. Please suggest some organic based product which can be applied on the foliage of forage crops and meet the requirement of crop for different nutrients.
regards
Balwinder,
I have used the commercial organic-based humic acid fertilizers as foliar and soil application on barley and maize. The results are not published yet but the foliar application was a good option for increasing the grain yield and other yield components parameters. The point is that soil application of the humic acid was not as good as foliar and the other point is that an appropriate dosage of foliar application and the time of application are very critical.
You may use biosynthesized nanonutrients. We are using it regularly on ten crops so far and getting 15-54% improvement in yield after foliar spraying at a concentration between 10-40 ppm (mg/L).
You may use biostimulants.
http://www.biorizon.es/Bioalgal_Marine/Algafert_Abonos_es.html
Hello Dr. Kumar: I used salicylic acid in sweet potatoes to delay senescence of foliage without affecting root yield; maybe you could essay it in other forages.
You may get more yield of forage crops after applying biosynthesized nanonutrients, specially with nano-Zn and nano-P. In general, nanonutrient application resulted less carbon release by the plant roots so you may expect more biomass production of forage crops. Under field crops we are getting 16-27% less C release in the hydrophonics of nano treated plants than untreated ones.
In my experience, there are very minimal measurable responses, either quality or quantity wise, of forage crops to foliar applications of biostimulants or humic acid based materials. I don't have experience with biosynthesized nanonutrients, but I'm pretty certain they would only be helpful to some degree if those particular nutrients are limited in the soil. I do know this, the primary nutrient affecting both yield and quality of the forage GRASSES is nitrogen. While you may get some color response, and possibly a slight growth response, to products such as manure teas and various other liquid organic products, rarely is the response of economic value. Proper use of inorganic fertilizers is not unhealthy for the environment, in my opinion. Even organic plant nutrient products, when improperly used, can be detrimental to the environment.
Thank to Dr Lane for highlighting this issue. I do agree with Dr. Lane. My experiences with the humic acid on barely and corn confirm his comments. Some effects on the main crop traits were seen but the differences were not that remarkable as someone may expect after applying the humic fertilizers. Anyway, differences were seen but not statistically different from the control (if one minds the statistics in comparisons). But both experiments showed that improper application (dosage, time of application) of humic acid had negative impact on the crop traits that may imply its detrimental effect.
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