School of Agricultural Sciences and Rural Development, Nagaland University, Medziphema, 797 106, Nagaland.
1National Research Centre for Citrus, Nagpur, 440 010, Maharashtra.
Nutrient conservation by various means has been acquiring the status of core agenda in nutrition programme of citrus. Researches accrued worldwide in both pre-bearing and bearing orchards showed no unanimity in response over space and time. The results are, however, more encouraging in pre-bearing than bearing orchards. Many experimental evidences have strongly supported the reduced application frequency of fertilizers compared to conventional uncoated fertilizers. The slow release concept can very well be extended to nutrients other than N, e.g. phosphogypsum coated urea, micronutrients like frits, metal ammonium phosphate etc. with additional advantage of natural coating and chelating materials. Different longevity ratings of slow release fertilizers could well be synchronized with nutrient demand at various growth stages with nutrient release pattern, with uniform efficiency on both coarse as well as fine textured soils.
