Neem Coated Urea (NCU), An Efficient Nitrogen Source for Paddy Cultivation: A Review

Abstract

Green revolution dramatically change the nitrogen application in paddy cultivation and day by day its demand increased but excessive and imbalanced use of nitrogen fertilizer has raised certain global concerns, also its low nitrogen use efficiency. Nitrogen is required in huge amounts for rice and supply of N in the right amount, at the right rate and at right time throughout the growing season is most important to increase the yield. Approximately 90% of the N-fertilizer applied worldwide is in the NH4+ form, which is rapidly oxidized to NO3- by soil nitrifier bacteria. Whereas, NCU temporarily delays the bacterial oxidation of the ammonium-nitrogen by depressing over a certain period of time the activity of Nitrosomonas bacteria in the soil. So far more than 75 studies have been conducted to study the performance of NCU in increasing the yield of rice and several other crops. In rice more than 30% of the urea consumed in India is applied, the mean increase in grain yield by replacing urea with NCU is 5 to 6%. NCU has been observed to improve nitrogen use efficiency and subsequently grain yield of rice. Possibly, applying NCU following the site-specific nutrient management principles will lead to paddy production of higher levels as observed with ordinary urea but with lower fertilizer application rates.

The Role of Net Assimilation Rate and Nitrogen Management in Optimizing Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Yield

“…According to Taleshi et al (2013), nitrogen positively influences plant growth rate by increasing tiller and leaf numbers. Nitrogen is an essential macro element for plants and plays a crucial role in various biological processes, including carbon metabolism, amino acid metabolism, nucleic acid metabolism and protein synthesis as a regulator of growth and production (Meena et al,2021) The Mentik Wangi variety exhibited the highest growth rate, outperforming the Inpari 33 variety but showing no significant difference from Hipa 21 and IPB 3S. The higher growth rates of Mentik Wangi and Hipa 21 are attributed to their greater number of tillers and leaf areas compared to other varieties.…”

Effect of Nano Nitrogen and Nano Zinc on the Growth and Yield of Sweetcorn

“…Zn uptake in cob was varied from 16.76 to 69.37 g ha -1 whereas in stover it was found that it varied from 54.74 to 193.16 g ha -1 . It was observed that Zn uptake was more in case of stover than cob, may be due to balanced nutrition to crop which stimulate the metabolic activity resulting better growth which helping in utilization of nutrients absorbed by plant leading to dry matter production [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24].…”

Effect of Application of Nano-urea on Maize (C-1415 Variety) Growth and Yield under Punjab Conditions

“…Among the essential nutrients, nitrogen has a good influence on the vegetative growth of plants, and due to its easy availability, it is widely adopted and used indiscriminately (Li et al, 2017). But nitrogen faces availability issues due to its high rate of leaching loss through volatilization and denitrification (Meena et al, 2021;Nduwimana et al, 2020). Therefore we should use high-efficiency nitrogen fertilizers, which would otherwise lead to poor quality of maize and environmental pollution.…”