Soil micronutrient pools and their transfer to paddy-crops in semi-arid agro-ecosystems, Central India

Publication date: August 2018
Source:Soil and Tillage Research, Volume 180
Author(s): Kriti Shukla, Anshumali
Irrigation is a key component of crop productivity, environmental protection and sustainable agriculture. To understand this, paddy-crops and soil samples were collected from rainfed (RFS) and irrigated (IRS) soils of semi-arid agro-ecosystems, Central India. The objectives of the current study were to (1) determine total concentrations of Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn in paddy-soils and paddy-crops, (2) chemical fractionation of operationally defined pools of Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn content in paddy-soils. Total micronutrient concentrations followed the order as: Fe > Mn > Zn > Cu with higher values in RFS paddy-soils. High residual fraction indicated the existence of micronutrients within mineral lattice structure, which resulted in low to moderate mobility factor (MF) of Cu, Fe, and Zn in the paddy-soils. The high Mn concentrations in non-residual fractions resulted in MF more than 50%. The transfer factors of total micronutrients (TFTM) showed high transfer of Zn and Mn to paddy-crops. The high TFEMF (transfer factor of exchangeable micronutrient fractions) of Cu and Fe revealed significant accumulation in paddy-roots. Paddy-grains differed significantly (P < 0.05) in total micronutrient content with high values in IRS agro-ecosystems. The correlation and multiple linear regression analyses showed control of micronutrient fractions on availability, uptake, transfer and translocation in paddy-crops through root system.

Graphical abstract

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