An assessment of soil fertility status of the rainfed region of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh

There are large yield gaps between farmers' current and achievable yields in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Lack of awareness about soil health is leading to indiscriminate or imbalanced use of chemical fertilizers exposing farm based livelihoods to soil health related risks. Soil fertility assessment of crop fields showed Madhya Pradesh soils relatively poor in terms of soil organic C and available P. All fields in both the states were sufficient in K and majority of the fields in Madhya Pradesh had adequate N and P. Results showed scope to cut use and cost of current N, P and K fertilizers. However, widespread deficiencies were recorded for S (52 to 90% fields), B (67 to 100% fields) and Zn (20 to 52% fields) in the selected sites for the study. Results showed that the deficiencies of S, B and Zn are apparently the stumbling block for realizing higher yields, and declining response to N, P and K fertilizers.