January 4, 2012

Pakistani scientists develop farming yield boost

Scientists in Pakistan's University of Agriculture have successfully launched a fertiliser model that will enable provincial farmers to get the desired wheat yield according to soil analysis.

The scientists are working on a project entitled "Synthesis of available fertiliser trail data for site specific recommendation and diagnostic survey for lower adoption of fertiliser use technology".

The project is for collection and synthesis of available fertiliser trials data, software development for site-specific recommendations and dissemination through CDs and access to web, and to diagnostic survey for low adoption of fertiliser use technology and imbalance use of nitrogen and phosphorus.

Principal Investigator of the project Dr Rashid Ahmad, a retired DG Research of Punjab government, said that they cannot apply fertiliser of Faisalabad Model in Multan region as the soil texture, fertility, and analysis is entirely different from each other. So, they need to get the analysis and then apply a balanced fertiliser on the crop.

He informed that two training workshops for soil fertility and agriculture extension officials of Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranawla, and Bahawalpur were held and thus call centres in these districts have been operationalised to guide the farmers regarding application of balanced fertilisers in lines with the need of the soil. He revealed that another training workshop for the officials of Sahiwal, Sargodha, Sialkot and Lahore is set to be held on January 9, 2012 to share the project findings for further extension services and setting up more call centres in the province.

Dr Rashid further said that after completing the modelling of other districts, they will upload the model on web-site. He was of the view that to meet the challenges of food security, we need to provide cost-effective technologies to the doorsteps of the farmers, which increase productivity and profitability per unit of land. He observed that today the role of fertilisers has gained increasing importance as high agricultural production per unit is expected from shrinking land and water resources. The agriculture sector is thus facing challenges of optimising fertiliser use-efficiency, diversifying cropping patterns, improving quality and reducing cost of production.

Referring to Soil Survey of Pakistan, he said that only 25% of the cultivated area is free from soil related constraints and rest of areas suffer from soil related problems such as salinity/sodicity, use of brackish water, soil erosion, surface crusting, soil pans and soil moisture stress in rain-fed areas. All these factors are pulling down the efficiency of fertilisers applied. He said that today, the fertiliser use in the country is in imbalance, as the use of micro-nutrients is still at small scale. The fertilisers have become very expensive input therefore; the general recommendations are not paying in relation to the investment made.

Dr Rashid said the nutrients are to be applied in the amount and proportion in which these are needed by specific crop in a specific soil. "No doubt, the best option is to determine the nutrient status through soil or plant analyses and then apply fertilisers in accordance with the requirements but in reality, most of the farmers are not getting their soils analysed" he added.