Nutrient Expert Soybean Validation Trial at Red and Lateritic Soil of Jharkhand

The study aims to validate Nutrient Expert Soybean in Red and Lateritic Soils of Jharkhand and compared the yield with plots receiving State Recommendations and Farmer's Fertilizer Practice. The study highlights that there is a significant (p 0.001) pod yield improvement for soybean under NE treatment compared to state recommendation and farmer's practice.

IPNI-2016-IND-539

22 May 2017

2016 Annual Interpretive Summary


Soybean is emerging as an important crop in eastern India. Farmers view it as a lucrative alternative to rice, the most common crop in the rainy season, due to its higher market price and higher income-producing potential. Consequently, upland rice is slowly being replaced by soybean in different states of the region. However, not being a traditional crop, appropriate nutrient management strategies for soybean are often missing, leading to missed yield and income opportunities. IPNI recently developed the Nutrient Expert® (NE) fertilizer decision support tool for soybean (NE–Soybean) based on the principles of 4R Nutrient Stewardship. The tool is under field validation in different soybean-growing areas of the country. The objectives of the present study were to assess the yield and economics of NE–Soybean-based fertilizer recommendations in farmers’ fields in the state of Jharkhand, and compare it with State Nutrient Recommendation (SR) and Farmer’s Fertilizer Practices (FFP).

The NE–Soybean validation trials were conducted in 15 different locations in Jharkhand. The soils in the experimental fields were predominately red and lateritic, and acidic in nature. The on-farm data highlights that the NE–Soybean based recommendation significantly improved the average soybean grain yield (4.3 t/ha) compared to that of FFP (2.7 t/ha) and SR (3.3 t/ha). This could be attributed to the balanced and adequate fertilizer application in the NE treatment, as the average N and K2O application rates were significantly higher in NE-based recommendations compared to that for FFP and SR. However, there was no significant change in P2O5 application rates. The average net income improvement in NE-Soybean based fertilizer application was INR 40,000/ha over FFP and INR 25,000/ha over SR. Overall, the NE–soybean tool provided science-based fertilizer recommendation that allowed farmers to reach the attainable yields in the state and provided higher income opportunities for livelihood improvement.