Monitoring Nutrient Status of Ber (Zizyphus mauritiana) Fruit Trees in Semi-arid and Arid Regions of Northwest India through Diagnostic Recommendation and Integrated System Approach

Abstract

The Diagnostic Recommendation and Integrated System (DRIS) was employed to interpret nutrient analyses of leaf tissues from ber fruit tree orchards grown in semi-arid and arid areas of Punjab in northwest India. The DRIS norms were established for various nutrient ratios obtained from the high-yield population and were used to compute DRIS indices, which assessed nutrient balance and their orders of limitation to yield. Nutrient sufficiency ranges derived from DRIS norms were 0.688–1.648%, 0.184–0.339%, 1.178–1.855%, 1.064–1.768%, 0.234–0.391%, and 0.124–0.180% for nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and sulfur (S) and were 55–205, 26–80, 17–33, and 5–11 mg kg⁻¹ for iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), and copper (Cu), respectively. According to these DRIS-derived sufficiency ranges, 79%, 76%, 76%, 75%, 84%, and 72% of samples were sufficient, whereas 13%, 15%, 21%, 14%, 7%, and 18% of total samples were low in N, P, K, Ca, Mg, and S, respectively. For micronutrients, 84%, 85%, 77%, and 86% of samples were sufficient, whereas 6%, 3%, 8%, and 2% of samples were low in Fe, Mn, Zn, and Cu, respectively.

Keywords:

• Ber
• DRIS norms
• foliar nutrition
• leaf composition
• sufficiency ranges