Prospect of Application of Amendments in a Summer Rice Field: Upholding Soil Properties via Inorganic Blended Amendments

ABSTRACT

The application of inorganic fertilizer in rice field is a foremost maneuver to acquire higher yield but effects properties of acidic sandy soil. An alternative strategy is to blend inorganic fertilizer with soil binding materials like magnesium sulfate (0.5 ton/ha), fresh neem (Azadirachata indica) (1 ton/ha) leaves, used tea (Camellia sinensis var assamica) (1 ton/ha) leaves, fresh karanj (Pongamia glabra) (1 ton/ha) leaves, and assess their prospects on soil properties and yield. The results of present investigation showed that the blended amendments exhibited improvement in iron, soil moisture, volumetric water content and bulk density. Inorganic fertilizer blended with karanj showed 4.12% increase in available phosphorus, 20.33% increase in available potassium, and 18.81% increase in zinc compared to inorganic fertilizer alone. Significant correlation between electrical potential and pH (−0.95), soil moisture and volumetric water content (0.93), soil temperature and copper (−0.90), bulk density and manganese (−0.88), and soil temperature and manganese (−0.88) were observed. Also 36.39% of variation in soil properties depended on electrical conductance, available phosphorus, iron, copper, manganese, soil temperature, and bulk density. However available phosphorus contributed 13.70% variation in yield.

KEYWORDS:

• Soil properties
• summer rice field
• leaves
• blended amendments

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to the department of Environmental Science of Tezpur University in providing the experimental areas and laboratory facilities in conducting the research.

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest exists between the authors.

Additional information

Funding

There is no finding agency for the work. This piece of investigation was one of the objectives during PhD work.