A Review on Microbial Intervention for Improving Phosphorus Use Efficiency in Pigeon Pea-Wheat Cropping System

Efficiency of applied Phosphorus (P) used by the crops varies from 10-30% in a year and the remaining 70-90% turns out to be a part of the soil P pool which is discharged to the crop year by year. The pool supplies to the future crop production enhance the fertilizer efficiency by improving crop recovery in the year in which it was applied and could potentially improve yield of the crop and returns. P is an essential element of all life and is also necessary for worldwide food security. Being it a limited resource, making it efficient use is vitally important. It is normally believed that Phosphorus fertilizer is not efficient because the annual recovery of phosphorus by crops in which it is sprayed is around 10-15%. The unrecovered residual P fertilizer by the crop is supposed to be permanently fixed in the soil in unavailable forms to the plants. However, field experiments don’t agree that view. Phosphorus use efficiency(PUE) can be evaluated in many ways, but “balance method” (i.e. fractional nutrient balance) is found to be improved as it is calculated as P removal-to-input ratio. When P is determined by the balance method, P recovery is generally in the series of 50-70% or even higher. Improving fertilizer P use and efficiency is achieved through the implementation of the best fertilizer management practices within circumstance of 4 R- application of the “Right nutrient resource, applied at Right time, Right rate and at Right place.” Agricultural production is frequently limited with low phosphorus availability. There are three strategies outlined by which microorganism and plants can improve PUE- root foraging strategies, P- mining strategies and improving the internal P utilization efficiency.