Precision Nutrient Management through LCC in kharif Maize (Zea mays L.)

Abstract

Background: Nitrogenous fertilizers being very expensive, farmers can’t come up with the money for them in big and it cannot observe in wasteful way. At the identical time, crop should not suffer from the deficiency of nitrogen. Proper time of N utility is important to limit N loss and increases restoration; it’s far commonly determined that farmer tend to apply more nitrogen fertilizer than needed mainly because of its immediately seen effect on plant boom and leaf color. Methods: Field experiment was conducted to study the effect of methods of sowing and nutrient management on productivity of maize during season of 2018 and 2019 on sandy loam soil at Amritsar. The soil was neutral (pH- 7.6) and it was low in Nitrogen (154 kg N/ha) and medium in phosphorus (24 kg P2O5/ha) and high in potassium (328 kg K2O/ha). The experiment consisted three methods of sowing i.e. Zero, Flat and Ridge sowing of maize and five levels of fertilizer i.e., No = control, Nrec = recommendation (125:60:30), NLCC4 (90:60:30), NLCC5 (120:60:30) and NLCC6 (150:60:30) with split N application on basis of LCC, thus making fifteen treatment combinations, which were replicated thrice and was laid out in Split pot design (SPD). Result: Higher grain yield (39.43 q ha-1) was obtained from ridge planting followed by (36.27 q ha-1) in planting method Zero tillage.The result indicated that different schedules of fertilizer expressed significant effect on maize grain yield and quality. It was found that the application of split N on the basis of LCC gave highest yield. The application of nutrient nitrogen used more efficiently by the NLCC4 in maize it may be due to less losses of nitrogen by application through leaf color chart shade 4. The gross return, net return and Benefit: cost ratio indicated that the application of nutrients on basis of LCC5 proved economically more remunerative.