Site-Specific Nutrient Management – Concept, Current Research and Future Challenges in Indian Agriculture

Crop management over the past four decades in India was driven by increasing use of external inputs. Future gains in productivity and input use efficiency will require soil and crop management technologies that are knowledge-intensive and are tailored to specific characteristics of individual farms or fields to manage the variability that exists between and within them. Site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) is one such option that has been tried successfully in India using different approaches. Not only has SSNM demonstrated a potential to increase crop yields and farmer's profits, there is also increasing evidence of the environmental-friendliness of SSNM as it focused on balanced and crop need-based nutrient application. Major challenges for the SSNM research and extension in future will be two-fold: (1) to retain the demonstrated potential of the approach and (2) to build upon what has already been achieved while reducing the complexity of the technology as it is disseminated to farmers. Development of tools that consolidate the complex and knowledge-intensive SSNM information into simple delivery systems enabling farmers and their advisors to rapidly implement this technology will be the key to future food security in India.