Impact of micronutrient supplementation through drip fertigation on growth, yield and recovery in sugarcane

Abstract

Sugarcane is an important commercial crop grown in Andhra Pradesh in an area of 1.0 lakh ha. It is a high biomass producing crop and depletes large quantities of nutrients from soil. A sugarcane crop producing 100tons of cane ha-1 remove 208Kg N, 53Kg P, 280Kg K, 30Kg Fe, 1.2 Kg Mn, 0.6 Kg Zn and 0.2 Kg Cu respectively from soil. Considering the need of micro nutrients for productively enhancement in sugarcane, a field study was carried out at Regional Agricultural Research Station, Anakapalle, North Coastal Andhra Pradesh for 3 consecutive years from 2016-17 to 2018-19 to know the impact of different micro nutrients supply through soil and fertigation along with supply of major nutrients of NPK. The experimental results indicated that application of Zn@ 25Kg/ha through drip fertigation or application of combination of micro nutrients as Formula-4 @2Kg ha-1 in 10 splits at weekly interval commencing from 45 days after planting to 180 days after planting favoured good growth and culminated in higher cane yield, sugar yields and uptake of macro and micro nutrients.