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Unbalanced fertilizer use in the Eastern Gangetic Plain: The influence of Government recommendations, fertilizer type, farm size and cropping patterns

Intensive cropping systems with diverse cropping patterns present a challenge for nutrient management on smallholder farms. Government-endorsed recommendations for crop fertilizer use are designed to assist farmers achieve profitable and balanced nutrient inputs, but it is unclear how closely farmer...

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Autores principales: Islam, Md. Shofiqul, Bell, Richard W., Miah, M. A. Monayem, Alam, Mohammad Jahangir
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9333275/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35901052
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272146
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author Islam, Md. Shofiqul
Bell, Richard W.
Miah, M. A. Monayem
Alam, Mohammad Jahangir
author_facet Islam, Md. Shofiqul
Bell, Richard W.
Miah, M. A. Monayem
Alam, Mohammad Jahangir
author_sort Islam, Md. Shofiqul
collection PubMed
description Intensive cropping systems with diverse cropping patterns present a challenge for nutrient management on smallholder farms. Government-endorsed recommendations for crop fertilizer use are designed to assist farmers achieve profitable and balanced nutrient inputs, but it is unclear how closely farmers follow these recommendations. We identified farmers’ current nutrient use gaps (overuse or underuse) relative to the Government-endorsed recommended nutrient doses in two cropping patterns in three representative Agro-ecological Zones of Bangladesh. A total of 330 farms were surveyed in 2019 from three farm size categories (referred to as large-, medium and small-scale) and their gaps in nutrient use were assessed relative to Government-endorsed Fertilizer Recommendation Guides (FRG) published in 2012 and in 2018: FRG-2012 and FRG-2018. The large- and medium-scale farms used 11–16%, 80–90% and 21–30%, respectively, over-doses of NPK in the cropping season under fully rice-based cropping pattern relative to FRG-2012 recommendations, while the over-dose levels were much lower for small-scale farms. Small-scale farms used much less than recommended S, Mg, Zn, B and organic manure (OM) rates relative to FRG-2012. The FRG-2018, which increased N and K recommendations but decreased the P recommendation for rice crops relative to FRG-2012, shows that all farms can decrease the dose of P (by 50%) while small-scale farms need to increase the dose of N (7%), K (16%), S (20%) and to apply Zn in the fully rice-based cropping pattern. On the other hand, the farms could greatly reduce NPK (19%, 86% and 44%, respectively) use while increasing S (14%), Mg, Zn, B and OM use relative to FRG-2018 in the pattern with the high-value potato crop. To increase crop profitability, enhance food security and save Government treasury in the Eastern Gangetic Plain enabling approaches are needed to effectively communicate the benefits of balanced nutrient use practices to farmers.
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spelling pubmed-93332752022-07-29 Unbalanced fertilizer use in the Eastern Gangetic Plain: The influence of Government recommendations, fertilizer type, farm size and cropping patterns Islam, Md. Shofiqul Bell, Richard W. Miah, M. A. Monayem Alam, Mohammad Jahangir PLoS One Research Article Intensive cropping systems with diverse cropping patterns present a challenge for nutrient management on smallholder farms. Government-endorsed recommendations for crop fertilizer use are designed to assist farmers achieve profitable and balanced nutrient inputs, but it is unclear how closely farmers follow these recommendations. We identified farmers’ current nutrient use gaps (overuse or underuse) relative to the Government-endorsed recommended nutrient doses in two cropping patterns in three representative Agro-ecological Zones of Bangladesh. A total of 330 farms were surveyed in 2019 from three farm size categories (referred to as large-, medium and small-scale) and their gaps in nutrient use were assessed relative to Government-endorsed Fertilizer Recommendation Guides (FRG) published in 2012 and in 2018: FRG-2012 and FRG-2018. The large- and medium-scale farms used 11–16%, 80–90% and 21–30%, respectively, over-doses of NPK in the cropping season under fully rice-based cropping pattern relative to FRG-2012 recommendations, while the over-dose levels were much lower for small-scale farms. Small-scale farms used much less than recommended S, Mg, Zn, B and organic manure (OM) rates relative to FRG-2012. The FRG-2018, which increased N and K recommendations but decreased the P recommendation for rice crops relative to FRG-2012, shows that all farms can decrease the dose of P (by 50%) while small-scale farms need to increase the dose of N (7%), K (16%), S (20%) and to apply Zn in the fully rice-based cropping pattern. On the other hand, the farms could greatly reduce NPK (19%, 86% and 44%, respectively) use while increasing S (14%), Mg, Zn, B and OM use relative to FRG-2018 in the pattern with the high-value potato crop. To increase crop profitability, enhance food security and save Government treasury in the Eastern Gangetic Plain enabling approaches are needed to effectively communicate the benefits of balanced nutrient use practices to farmers. Public Library of Science 2022-07-28 /pmc/articles/PMC9333275/ /pubmed/35901052 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272146 Text en © 2022 Islam et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Islam, Md. Shofiqul
Bell, Richard W.
Miah, M. A. Monayem
Alam, Mohammad Jahangir
Unbalanced fertilizer use in the Eastern Gangetic Plain: The influence of Government recommendations, fertilizer type, farm size and cropping patterns
title Unbalanced fertilizer use in the Eastern Gangetic Plain: The influence of Government recommendations, fertilizer type, farm size and cropping patterns
title_full Unbalanced fertilizer use in the Eastern Gangetic Plain: The influence of Government recommendations, fertilizer type, farm size and cropping patterns
title_fullStr Unbalanced fertilizer use in the Eastern Gangetic Plain: The influence of Government recommendations, fertilizer type, farm size and cropping patterns
title_full_unstemmed Unbalanced fertilizer use in the Eastern Gangetic Plain: The influence of Government recommendations, fertilizer type, farm size and cropping patterns
title_short Unbalanced fertilizer use in the Eastern Gangetic Plain: The influence of Government recommendations, fertilizer type, farm size and cropping patterns
title_sort unbalanced fertilizer use in the eastern gangetic plain: the influence of government recommendations, fertilizer type, farm size and cropping patterns
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9333275/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35901052
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272146
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