Deep Placement of Urea Increased Fertilizer Use Efficiency and Yield of Summer Tomato

Abstract

The coastal areas cover about 20% of the geographical area of Bangladesh and comprise more than

30% of the cultivable lands of the country. Agricultural land use in these areas is very poor compared to the country’s average cropping intensity of 191%. Fertilizer deep placement (FDP) is a proven technology for nutrient supply to different crops all over the world. FDP is more effective than the traditional method (surface broadcasting) of applying fertilizer across a field. In Bangladesh, demand for vegetable production in terms of domestic and export market is increasing day by day, but soil fertility is the major constraint for agriculture especially in vegetable production. Most of the farmers in Bangladesh do not follow the judicious nutrient management strategies for vegetable production and so the farmers cannot get maximum benefit of fertilizer application. At Rahmatpur, Barishal during two seasons of 2016-17 and 2017-18, the effects of different forms of urea fertilizer deep placement were tested to quantify the fertilizer use efficiency and yield of summer tomato cultivation. The treatments were viz. prilled urea broadcasting (Farmers’ Practice; FP), prilled urea deep placement (DPU) and urea super granules deep placement (USG). Fertilizer use efficiency was increased after application of deep placement of urea. Economic yield was higher (27.4 t ha^-1) with USG followed by DPU (24.5 t ha^-1), lowest being observed in case of FP (18.9 t ha^-1). The benefit cost ratio (BCR) was greater with USG (2.01) and DPU (1.81) application than FP (1.31). Deep placement of both forms of urea was more efficient than broadcasting of prilled urea for summer tomato cultivation.