Soil Test Based Fertilizer Prescriptions under Integrated Plant Nutrient Management System for Barley in an Inceptisol of Eastern Plain Zone of Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

To develop fertilizer prescription equation for barley, a field experiment was conducted on Inceptisol of Agricultural Research Farm, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi during rabi 2012-13 by using integrated plant nutrient management system on the basis of STCR approach. The barley grain and straw yield was significantly increased with the soil test values and fertilizer doses of N, P and K. Based on the experiment, the nutrient requirement for producing one tonne of barley grain was 25 kg of N, 5.60 kg of P2O5 and 29.30 kg of K2O, respectively. The per cent nutrient contribution from soil was 21.89, 38.36 and 34.27, from fertilizer 55.12, 51.52 and 90.03, and from organic manure 10.68, 3.29 and 27.64 for N, P2O5 and K2O, respectively. The basic data transformed into soil test based fertilizer adjustment equations for specific targets of barley grain yield of 4.5 t ha-1 have been calibrated based on the targeted yield concept. These fertilizer prescription equations developed for barley (var.) PL-172 can be used to estimate fertilizer doses formulated for a range of soil test values and desired yield targets under NPK alone and IPNMS (NPK plus FYM).