You have learnt from the lessons in the earlier Modules that soil properties influence soil health'

1
Soil Health Management
Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics
Module III

• You have learnt from the lessons in the
  earlier Modules that soil properties influence
  soil health.
• These soil properties in turn are affected by
  the agricultural practices followed by a farmer.
• Good agricultural practices not only help in
  managing the soil but also improve soil health.
• What are these good agricultural practices?

Course on Soil and Soil Health
2
Soil Health Management
Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics
Module III

• The good agricultural practices that help in
  improving and managing soil health focus on
• Improving and maintaining organic matter in
• the soil
• Avoiding tillage practices that harm the soil
  
• structure
• Conserving the soil from erosion and other soil
  
• degrading effects
• Adopting integrated nutrient and pest
• management practices,
• Rectifying soil problems like acidity and
  
• alkalinity.

Course on Soil and Soil Health
3

• After completing this Lesson, you will be able
  to answer
• What is integrated nutrient management (INM)?
• How INM helps in maintaining and improving soil
  health?
• How INM is practiced?
• Explain with an example how INM helps in
  maintaining and improving soil health?
• What is integrated pest management (IPM)?
• What IPM practices help in reducing the pest
  pressure in a cropped field?
• How IPM helps in maintaining and improving soil
  health?

4

• Improved and high yielding varieties of crops
  require application of fertilizers and
  controlling infesting pests to get the best
  benefit of growing such varieties.
• But, continuous and imbalanced use of agro
  chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers affect
  the soil health by
• adversely affecting the useful soil
  microorganisms, and
• the left over chemical residues become toxic to
  plants.

5

• Hence, it is important to use these agro-
  chemicals very judiciously to get best yield
  without affecting the soil health.
• Integrated nutrient management (INM) and
  Integrated pest management (IPM) are good
  practices to maintain the soil health without
  reducing the crop productivity.

6

• Integrated nutrient management (INM) refers to
  use of organic manures and fertilizers in
  combination to maintain soil health and obtain
  best yields.
• Sufficient and balanced application of organic
  manures and fertilizers is the focus in INM.

7

• In integrated nutrient management (INM)
  approach, organic manures like farm yard manure,
  compost etc. are first considered for
  application. The balance crop nutrient
  requirements are supplemented with the
  appropriate fertilizer application.
• Improved method of application along with proper
  timing of application are also considered to
  achieve the best efficiency of used organic
  manures and fertilizers.

8

• Integrated nutrient management (INM) is
  practiced by applying the organic manures and
  fertilizers in combination after assessing what
  the soil can provide through soil testing, and
  the crop nutrient requirements to give certain
  amount of yield.
• Let us consider an example for better
  understanding integrated nutrient management
  (INM) practice.

9

• Step 1 Farmer expects an yield of 3 t (3000
  kg) from one ha of sorghum.
• Step 2 To get 1 t of yield, sorghum crop
  requires 20 kg N, 3.5 kg P, 30 kg of K, and small
  quantities of other nutrients.
• So, to get 3 t sorghum yield, the crop requires
• 20 kg N x 3 60 kg N,
• 3.5 kg P x 3 10. 5 kg P
  and
• 30 kg K x 3 90 kg of K
• (Nitrogen , phosphorus, and potassium are
  
• expressed as N, P, and K)

10

• Step 3 The soil test has shown that the soil
• supplies 20 kg N, 3.5 kg P and
  adequate
• quantities of K and other
  nutrients.
• Step 4 From Step 1, you know sorghum crop needs
• 60 kg N, 10.5 kg P and 90 kg K.
• So, nutrients required from external
• source will be
• 60 kg N 20 kg N from
  soil 40 kg N
• 10.5 kg P 3.5 kg from soil 7 kg P
• As soil contains adequate quantities of
  K, there is no need to apply any K.

11

• Step 5 Farmer has 3 cart loads (1500 kg) of
  FYM and 1 cart load (500 kg) of Compost to apply
  to the crop.
• Step 6 1500 kg FYM supplies
• N 1500 kg x 1 N 15 kg N
• P 1500 kg x 0.2 P 3 kg P
• Step 7 500 kg of Compost supplies
• N 500 kg x 2 N 10 kg N
• P 500 kg x 0.4 P 2 kg P

12

• Step 8 Application of FYM and Compost together
  supplies
• N 15 kg 10 kg 25 kg N
• P 3 kg 2 kg 5 kg P
• Step 9 A. Nutrients requirement from external
  source is
• 40 kg N and 7 kg P (see Step
  4)
• B. FYM and Compost application
  provides
• 25 kg N and 5 kg P (see
  Step 8)
• C. So, the balance nutrient
  requirement is to be
• supplied through
  fertilizers.
• Balance N 40 kg 25 kg
  15 kg N
• Balance P 7 kg 5 kg 2
  kg P

13

• Step 10 A. N fertilizer efficiency is 50, so
  we
• need to apply, 15 kg N x 2
  30 kg N
• through nitrogenous
  fertilizer.
• B. P fertilizer efficiency is
  20, so we
• need to apply, 2 kg P x 5
  10 kg P
• through phosphatic
  fertilizer.
• Step 11 Farmer has Urea and Super phosphate to
• apply to the crop.

14

• Step 12 A. Amount of Urea (46 N) required to
  
• supply 30 kg N is
• 30 kg N x 46 N 65.
  21 kg or 65 kg
• B. Amount of Super phosphate
  (16 P )
• required to supply 10 kg
  P is
• 10 kg P x 16 P 62.
  5 kg or 63 kg
• Step 13 The farmer has to apply 3 cart loads of
  FYM, 1 cartload of Compost, 65 kg of Urea and 63
  kg of Super phosphate to sorghum crop to harvest
  around 3000 kg of yield per ha.

15

• This integrated nutrient management of applying
  3 cart loads of FYM, 1 cartload of Compost, 65 kg
  of Urea and 63 kg of Super phosphate to sorghum
  crop, the farmer is benefited by
• Better utilization of farm resources like FYM and
  compost
• Application of FYM and Compost improves the soil
  organic matter
• No excessive application of fertilizers
• Soil nutrients are not exhausted by considering
  the efficiency of fertilizers
• All the above factors help in maintaining the
  soil health and to achieve expected yields.

16

• Integrated pest management (IPM) involves use
  of different crop pest control practices like
  cultural, biological and chemical methods in a
  combined and compatible way to suppress pest
  infestations.
• The  main goal of IPM is to manage pests and the
  environment so as to balance costs, benefits,
  public health, and environmental quality.
• A number of non-chemical cultural practices form
  the core of IPM. But IPM does not do away with
  chemical pesticide usage.

17

• IPM is not new to our farmers community.
• Summer and post harvest ploughing has been in
  practice with the farmers to expose soil insects
  and pupae.
• Growing of marigold plants in commercial crops
  like chillies and vegetables have been practiced
  by many farmers.
• Use of neem twigs while storing grain also
  practiced by our forefathers.
• Such practices not only minimize the expenditure
  on pesticides and their application but also help
  in maintaining the biological balance in nature.

18

• The major tools for the development and adoption
  of IPM strategies are pest surveys and
  monitoring.
• A field crop is monitored to determine a pest
  economic status or to determine whether a natural
  enemy is at a level capable of suppressing a
  pest's population density. So identification of
  pests and beneficial insects is of prime
  importance before any control operation is
  executed.

19

• The major tools for the development and adoption
  of IPM strategies are pest surveys and
  monitoring.
• Monitoring tools like pheromone, light and sticky
  traps can be advantageously used.
• Field scouting adopting fixed plot survey or
  roving survey should be taken from time to time
  to monitor the crop in determining whether the
  pest population is leading to severe damage of
  the crop.

20

• Some IPM practices
• Use of monitoring tools like pheromone
  traps, light traps, colored sticky traps.
• Bird perches.
• Use of seed dressing bio- and chemical
  pesticides
• Adoption of resistant varieties.

21

• Some IPM practices
• Use of eco-friendly insecticides like neem
  products and bio-fungicides like Trichoderma
  sp.
• Considering natural enemies like
  Trichogramma egg cards, and microbial
  preparations like NPV etc.
• Use of bait preparations.

22

• Some IPM practices
• Insect traps
  Colored sticky trap

23

• Some IPM practices
• Bird perch Cattle
  egrets eating
• 
  caterpillars

24

• Several effective IPM practices that are cost
  effective, sustainable and eco-friendly in
  different ecosystems have been developed for
  various crops.
• For more information on IPM, please visit the
  following Internet sites
• http//agri.and.nic.in/biocontrol..htm
• http//www.vigyanprasar.com/comcom/develop51.htm
  
• http//www.vasat.org/learning/agri/chickpea_htm/i
  nsect_pests/ipm.htm
• http//www.ncipm.org.in/ipm.htm
• http//www.ikisan.com/links/pnj_pests.shtmlInteg
  rated20Pest20Management

25
Soil Health Management
Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics
Module III

• This concludes the Lesson 4 Integrated
  nutrient and pest management practices - in this
  Module.
• Problem soils and their reclamation
  procedures are discussed in the last Lesson in
  this Module.
• Select Lesson 5 in Module III from the list of
  course contents

Course on Soil and Soil Health