Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences
Title : | Development of polymer bio-mineral composite for improving water productivity, nutrient use efficiency and environmental sustainability |
Area of research : | Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences |
Focus area : | Plant Nutrition |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Ashis Maity, ICAR-Indian Institute of Water Management, Bhubaneswar, Odisha |
Timeline Start Year : | 2024 |
Timeline End Year : | 2027 |
Contact info : | ashisashismaity@gmail.com |
Details
Executive Summary : | Phosphorus and potassium are two major essential nutrients for the growth and development of crops. Chemical P and K fertilizers are generally applied to restock removed minerals and to optimize yield. Upon application of relatively soluble P and K fertilizer to the soil, it easily gets transformed into insoluble complexes (get fixed) within the soil. This fixation of applied P and K in soil reduces the availability of nutrients to the plant. Nutrient supply further gets curtailed owing to scarcity of soil moisture during the rainless period. All these phenomena result in drastic reduction of crop productivity yielding poor income to the farmers. Further, the cost of P and K fertilizers are increasing at rapid pace as most of the K fertilizers are imported from the foreign country. so, it is necessary to find out ways and means for enhanced solubilization of fixed soil P and K resources and subsequently their transport to the root system for uptake by the plant. Fortunately, India is bestowed with large deposit of low-grade K containing silicate minerals (mica and feldspar) and P containing rock phosphate. However, direct application of these low-grade rock materials to the soil has their own limitation because of poor solubility and low nutrient content. A novel bio-intervention strategy may be explored to accelerate release of P and K from these low-grade rock materials as well as from the fixed form in the soil so that these waste rock materials can be used for sustainable crop production. At the same time, provision may be explored to maintain sufficient soil moisture content in order to transport released P and K to the plant root system for their uptake. In our earlier study, a novel fungal strain Penicillium pinophilum MCC114 has been found to have very good P and K solubilizing ability. This project aims to develop high water retention biomass- based hydrogel polymer for slow release of water over the crop growth period and also to stimulate the solubilizing activity of P and K solubilizing fungi P. pinophilum MCC114 through incorporation of rock phosphate and potassium feldspar or mica into the carrier material for developing suitable bio-mineral formulation. Effort will be made to integrate hydrogel polymer with bio-mineral fertilizer to make a composite formulation which would be able to accelerate solubilization of soil P and K and slowly release moisture to facilitate transport of released P and K to the vicinity of plant root system for their uptake. such effort of integrating microorganism mediated accelerated solubilization of fixed soil P and K and provision for slow release of moisture into a single formulation has never been explored to the best of our knowledge. Moreover, this bio-enrichment-based approach is inexpensive as they require cheap raw materials including use of low-grade minerals and waste biomass, making the process as well as product environmentally sustainable. |
Co-PI: | Dr. Dr Arjamadutta sarangi, ICAR-Indian Institute of Water Management, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, Dr. Dibakar Ghosh, ICAR-Indian Institute of Water Management, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, Dr. samaresh Jana, ICAR-Indian Institute of Water Management, Bhubaneswar, Odisha |
Total Budget (INR): | 27,05,200 |
Organizations involved