Fertility Status of Major Sugarcane Growing Soils of Punjab, India

摘要

The major area (>55%) of sugarcane in India comes from the sub-tropical northern states facing serious challenges of soil productivity fatigue caused by widespread multi-nutrient deficiency and unfettered mining of soil nutrients effected through imbalanced nutrient application skewed in favour of primary nutrients. Among the sub-tropical areas, Punjab being on the forefront of agricultural development has borne the brunt of intensive cropping leading to diminishing response to applied inputs in various production systems. Punjab witnessed fluctuations in sugarcane area, production and productivity during the past decade resulting in the closure of a number of sugar mills mainly due to the unavailability of sugarcane for crushing. In this state, owing to decline in the profitability, the area under sugarcane has come down from 1.23 lakh ha in 2003-04 to 0.96 lakh ha during 2013-14 (Anonymous 2015). Reduction in crop area may be ascribed among other reasons to over reliance of sugarcane growers on market purchased inputs and its rising cost that reduced the profit margins and compelled sugarcane growers to look for other options. However, burgeoning population and rising income levels necessitate an increase in overall sugarcane as well as sugar production with enhanced yield. As the crop, once planted, occupies the field for 2-3 years duration to accommodate one plant followed by one or more ratoon crops in succession its productivity per unit area and time heavily rests on inherent soil nutrientstatus and their availability. Keeping this in view fertility levels of the soils collected from the farmers' fields located in different sugar mill zones of Punjab were assessed in major sugarcane growing regions of the state that can provide base to work out fertilizer application needs and ensure cost-effective cane cultivation besides maintenance of soil health and quality.