Vol. 10, Issue 4 (2021)

Author(s):
Shilpa and BG Vasanthi

Abstract:
Nutrient use efficiency is a critically important concept in assessing the performance of crop production systems. Phosphorus is one of the most critical externally added source for any crop production system. Optimizing phosphorus use efficiency can increase grain yield while reducing its adverse effects on environment. Therefore, a study was carried out at research farm of All India Co-ordinated Project for Dryland Agriculture (AICRPDA) in University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore to predict the effects of long-term application of phosphatic fertilizers along with manures on phosphorus use efficiency of finger millet under different cropping system. Experiment was laid down in randomised completely block design (RCBD) with 10 treatments, replicated four times. Application of FYM 10 t ha^-1 + 100 % RDF under finger millet-groundnut rotation (T₉) resulted in higher grain yield (28.67 q ha^-1) as well as phosphorus uptake by grains (6.78 kg ha^-1) of finger millet. However, phosphorus use efficiency, in terms of partial factor productivity (110.50 kg kg^-1), agronomic efficiency (94.10 kg kg^-1) and apparent recovery (18.85 %), was more with application of FYM 10 t ha^-1 under finger millet-groundnut rotation (T₇) indicated the importance of organics in present day agriculture.