Precision Nutrient Management through LCC in kharif Maize (Zea mays L.)

Rice-wheat cropping system has led to a number of unfavourable effects together with deterioration of soil fitness and extreme ground water depletion. To triumph over these consequences there’s a want to update the rice crop with relatively low water requiring, brief period and hybrid sorts of maize crop. It has attained a status of slogan in nowadays with suitability for diversification and a couple of cropping. 
                           
Maize occupied 114.6 thousand hectare with production of 410.5 thousand tonnes in Punjab during 2019-20. The productivity of maize is 35.82 quintal per hectare (Annonymus, 2021). To accelerate production in Punjab, adoption of cutting-edge agro-management practices seems imperative and one of the predominant strategies is the usage of proper method of sowing. Planting approach has good sized importance among all agronomic practices, as right adjustment of plant inside the field not only guarantees effective plant population, but additionally allows the flora to utilize the land and different input sources greater correctly and resolutely toward boom and development and yield of maize. Maize may be planted in specific approaches i.e. Ridge planting, furrow planting, line planting and broadcast. All these technique have superiority over each other with admire to crop stand, irrigation control, drainage of excess water, utilization of herbal moisture within the soil, root balance in check to lodging and weed control and many others.

Nitrogenous fertilizers being very expensive, farmers can’t come up with the money for them in big and it cannot observe in wasteful way. At the identical time, crop should not suffer from the deficiency of nitrogen. Proper time of N utility is important to limit N loss and increases restoration; it’s far commonly determined that farmer tend to apply greater nitrogen fertilizer than needed mainly because of its immediately seen effect on plant boom and leaf color. So, in maize also there is scope to modify nitrogen fertilizer application with timing of plant requirement to decorate nitrogen use performance due to the fact nitrogen requirement of maize plant is not identical in the course of the growth period. This adjustment ought to be primarily based on leaf colour depth of crop because it’s miles at once related to leaf chlorophyll content and leaf nitrogen popularity. This real time nitrogen control can be completed through leaf coloration chart which assist in increasing nitrogen use performance.

Leaf colour chart is basically a guide to supply the necessary nitrogen fertilizer for the optimal nitrogen content which is very necessary in achieving maximum yield. In maize by using threshold LCC shade 5 saved 25-50% fertilizer nitrogen. Leaf color chart is technique for real time nitrogen management (Singh et al., 2002) which can be used for rapid and reliable monitoring of relative green color of the leaf as an indicator of leaf nitrogen status. In this context, an experiment was carried out to study the precision nutrient management through use of LCC and “Nutrient Expert” in maize under sandy loamy soil of Amritsar, India.

field experiment was conducted to study the precision nutrient management through use of LCC and different methods of sowing in kharif maize during season of 2018 and 2019 at the research farm of Khalsa College Amritsar which is situated at 31^o-38’N latitude and 74o-52’E longitudes with an average altitude of 236 m above mean sea level under semi-arid of Punjab. The soil was neutral (pH-7.6) and it was low in Nitrogen (154 kg N/ha) and medium in phosphorus (24 kg P₂O₅/ha) and high in potassium (328kg K₂O/ha). The experiment was conducted with kharif Maize cv PMH-1. The experiment consisted three methods of sowing i.e. zero, flat and ridge sowing of maize and five levels of fertilizer i.e, No = control, Nrec =  recommendation (125:60:30), N_LCC4 (90:60:30), N_LCC5 (120:60:30) and N_LCC6 (150:60:30) with split N application on basis of LCC,  thus making fifteen treatment combinations, which were replicated thrice and was laid out in Split pot design (SPD). In N_LCC4 three splits, N_LCC5 four splits and N_LCC6 five splits of nitrogen were applied @ 30 kg N/ha in each split.
 
Nitrogen content of grain
 
The nitrogen content in seeds was determined by modified Kjeldahls method as described by Piper (1966).
 
Nitrogen content of straw
 
The nitrogen content in straw was determined by modified Kjeldahls method as described by Piper (1966).
 
Protein content
 
Nitrogen percentage was determined in grains and protein content was worked out by multiplying by the factor 6.25.
 
Efficiencies
 
Partial factor productivity

 

 
  
Agronomic efficiency
 

 

 Benefit cost ratio
 
Cost of cultivation was calculated by taking into account the prevailing prices of inputs like tillage operations, seed, irrigation, fertilization, weeding, harvesting, transportation charges, management charges, rental value of land and depreciation.

Additional cost involved and returns obtained with different treatments was worked out on the basis of market rate of all the applied inputs during experimentation on per hectare basis. The benefit cost ratio is computed on the basis of the formula given below:

 
 
 

Grain yield
 
The data with respect to grain yield presented in Table 1 showed that different methods had significant effect on grain yield of maize. Higher grain yield (39.43 q ha^-1) was obtained from ridge planting followed by Zero tillage (36.27 q ha^-1). The planting method ridge and Zero tillage statistically at par with each other but were significantly superior over Flat planting method. The higher grain yield of ridge might be due to vigor growth. Similar results were observed by Lashkari et al., (2011). Appropriate approach of sowing has several advantages in agronomic measures consisting of intercultural, weeding, insect-pest control and so on.  Ridge sowing is taken into consideration to be the approach that have the above advantages as opposed to different techniques of sowing supported with the aid of the findings of Vogal et al., (1994) located that grain yield of maize changed into better with  ridging plots. While Vedove et al., (1996) pronounced that grain yield of maize changed into greater with ridging which changed into attributed to the more quantity of N under this device.



Nitrogen has paramount area in figuring out sustainable soil fertility control. The crop elimination, real stability and internet benefit have been higher with LCC-5 practices. The effect of different nitrogen levels on grain yield of maize was significant. The treatment NLCC6 recorded highest grain yield (46.50 q ha^-1). It was significantly higher than N0 (25.27 q ha^-1) but statistically at par with NLCC5 (43.05 q ha^-1).Where maximum grain yieldwas observed with NLCC6 (46.50 q ha^-1) followed byNLCC5 (43.05 q ha^-1), NREC (40.36q ha^-1), NLCC4 (34.50 q ha^-1) and N0 (25.27 q ha^-1). Greater grain yield at higher nitrogen application was probably due to better vegetative growth of crop plant. These results are in line with finding of Ahmad et al., (2009) who also found that grain yield increased by increasing nitrogen levels. Higher to be had NPK repute after harvest of maize with graded tiers of NPK software become also pronounced by Jayaprakash et al., (2006). Varinderpal ​et al. (2011) also opined that fertilizer N can be greater correctly managed by applying fertilizer N dose primarily based on leaf color as measured by LCC than blanket recommendation. Ravi et al., (2007) reported that utility and fertilizer primarily based LCC-five mixed with in experienced manure expanded grain yield and nutrient uptake in hybrid rice.
 
Nitrogenand protein content in grain
 
Nitrogen content of maize grain as indication of potential yield response to applied nitrogen. Data presented in Table 1 illustrated that nitrogen content of grains in planting methods is non-significant but significantly higher in ridge as compare to zero and flat sowing of maize.

In sub plots treatments different N levels has significant effect on nitrogen content of grain. The highest N content found in Nlcc6 and lowest found in N0. But NLCC5 and NRec remained at par with each other during both years.

The protein content is a very important quality parameter of maize. This ultimately depends on the uptake of nitrogen by the crop. The data regarding protein content has been presented in Table 1 showed that varieties could not show any significant influence on grain protein content during both 2018 and 2019. But higher grain protein content found inridge planting method.During both years, the highest grain protein content found in NLCC6 and lowest found in N0. NLCC6, NLCC5, NLCC4 remained at par with NRec. Higher protein content inNLCC6, NRec and NLCC may be due to higher nitrogen application. This results were in lines with the finding of Amanullah et al. (2009) who reported that Quality character in maize, such as protein content in seed were improved with optimum N levels. The higher internet benefits with these treatments become related to higher split doses of nitrogen and uptake through crop. Higher  harvest index turned into recorded with utility of nitrogen primarily based on LCC threshold  four  (45.1%)  and  lower  in  whilst  N  fertilizer  became  now not carried out (35.7%). Arvind et al., (2004) additionally pronounced extended nitrogen uptake in ordinary sown rice based totally on LCC < five.0 as compared to decrease threshold tiers. Based at the monetary returns, it can be inferred that for maize break up software of N at  the charge of  a hundred and twenty  kg  ha^-1 every time LCC threshold -5 and Green Seeker based totally  NDVI-zero.8  has  found out better  profit. These are better gear for N control over fixed N charge in sweet corn.
 
Efficiencies         
 
Nitrogen use efficiency (PFP and AE) has been presented in Table 2.



From this highest nitrogen use efficiency PFP40.30 percent for 2018 and 42.33 per cent for 2019 found in the treatment NLCC4 whereas Agronomic efficiency observed more under NLCC5 as compared to other treatments. This mean the nitrogen used more efficiently by the NLCC4 in maize it may be due to less losses of nitrogen by application through leaf color chart shade 4. Our results are in line with Rehman et al., (2011) who reported that nutrient use efficiency increased but up to a certain level of fertilizer application and then it curved with further increase in fertilizer application probably due to fact that higher rates of fertilizer could lead to relatively more losses of nutrient. The positive correlation observed in Table 3 between the grain yield and nitrogen use efficiencies.


 
Economics
 
The pooled data of two years in Table 4 shows that among all the sowing methods maximum income was obtained with ridge planting method (Rs 62040 ha^-1) followed by zero tillage planting (Rs 59145 ha^-1) and flat planting (Rs 52815 ha^-1) methods. The data also revealed that all the nitrogen management treatments gave higher income over control (no nitrogen). Maximum income obtained with LCC6 (Rs 65453 ha^-1) and minimum was obtained with N0 (Rs 39541).



Benefit cost is the ratio of gross returns to cost of cultivation. According to the data given in Table 4 it was observed that among planting methods highest benefit cost ratio was recorded in zero tillage planting. Zero tillage gave more benefit cost ratio due to less cost of cultivation in zero tillage method. The data in Table further depicted that maximum BC ratio (1.63) was recorded in N_LCC5 followed N_LCC6 (1.61), NREC (1.49) and N_LCC4 (1.26). Minimum BC ratio (1.10) was recorded in control plots where no nitrogen was applied. A higher monetary go back was realized by use of  LCC for nutrient control mentioned by using Balasubramanian et al., (2000) and Biradar et al., (2005). Among this equipment, LCC being a cost powerful, easy and farmer’s pleasant machine can be effortlessly used even by using small and illiterate farmers. Thus the blanket guidelines of making use of constant N dose at constant time durations need to get replaced with want based fertilizer N management generation the usage of LCC in maize.

The outcomes of this study showed that Ridge method of sowing produced higher grain yield whereas as Zero tillage method of sowing is more economical. Amongst the application of nutrient nitrogen, more efficient utilization of nitrogen was under N_LCC5 which proved economically more remunerative.

The authors declare that they have contributed to the article at a similar rate.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.