Ibrahimpur village in Narayanaraopet mandal of Siddipet district, once in the news by attracting several VVIPs from across the country for its innovation on community activities, is in the news once again. This time it has reduced the use of urea to the best possible extent. As much as 450 bags of urea worth ₹5.4 lakh given for the village was unused and sent back .
Take the case of Kumbh Nagesh Reddy, a farmer from the village. He is having about 4.2 acres of land cultivating paddy. Farmers usually use higher quantity of urea to get bumper harvest with a staunch feeling that additional urea will give strength to the crop for better yield. Nagesh Reddy was no exception. He was accustomed to using as much as nine bags (405 kilograms) of urea in his field every season for paddy cultivation.
However, his perspective has changed for the better. In the present season, he used only half of what he used to. The urea consumption was reduced to five bags (225 kilograms) as against the previous nine bags. He used urea in three phases – first basal dose of 15 kilograms in the first week after rains, followed by another 15 kilograms at tillering stage and third dose of last 15 kilograms in the panicle stage per acre. With this, the urea he saved was worth ₹4,800 as per open market rate of ₹1,200 per bag while farmers are getting each bag of urea at a subsidized price of ₹280.
“Fertilizer plays an important role in agriculture. The plant requires major nutrients, NPK, for growth. Chief source of artificial nitrogen fertilizer is urea. According to reports, NPK consumption in India is 8:4:2 whereas the standard was 4:2:1 ratio and the result is one and the same. Paddy growers depend on urea resulting in adverse impact on soil fertility — the organic carbon essential for normal growth of plant is getting reduced and salinity in soil increasing — leading to saline soil. The average yield per acre stood at 25 quintals,” T. Nagarjuna, agriculture extension officer (AEO), Narayanraopet told The Hindu adding that not following crop rotation was one of the main reasons for soil degradation.
The village farmers used to apply 1,250 bags of urea for 600 acres and this season they used only 800 bags and saved 450 bags of urea. This is worth ₹5.4 lakh.
The farmers in the village have also came forward to cultivate green manure. In more than 360 acres green manure was sown and incorporated in soil after flowering stage. “One acre of green manure crop adds 10 tonnes of bio-mass to soil. One tone of green manure contain 7.5 kg of nitrogen, two kilograms of phosphorus and five kilograms of potash as this results in increase in organic carbon and reduce the salinity in soil,” said Mr. Nagarjuna.
