Resource Book on Horticulture Nursery Management

3.2.5. Integrated Nutrient Management in Nursery
Integrated Nutrient Management (INM):
Integrated Nutrient Management differs from the conventional nutrient management
by more explicitly considering nutrients from different resources, notably organic
sources, nutrients carried over from previous cropping season, the dynamics,
transformations and interactions of nutrients in the soils, interaction between their
availability in the root zone and during growing season in relation to the nutrient demand
by crop.
Integrated Plant Nutrient system (IPNS):
IPNS is the maintenance of soil fertility through plant nutrient supply to an optimum
level for sustaining the desired productivity through optimization of benefits from all
possible sources in an integrated manner.
The INM is a practice for soil fertility management:
� It enhances the availability of both applied and native soil nutrients during the crop
season.
� It synchronizes the nutrient demand set by the plants both in time and space with
supply of nutrients from soil and applied nutrient pool.
� It sustains and enhances the physical, chemical, biological properties related to the
soil health.
� It arrests degradation of soil water and environmental quality by minimizing the
wastage of nutrient to water bodies and atmosphere.
Major Components of INM can be grouped in to three broad groups:
1. Organic Manures
2. Inorganic Fertilizers
3. Biofertilizers
1. Organic Manures:
Bulk organic manures have been the major traditional means of sustaining plant
nutrients in the soil throughout history and equally as important today.
(A) In-situ Manuring by Animals: This is the widespread traditional practice in areas
where cattle, buffalo, sheep, and goat are kept during night on open land and latter
ploughed directly to be incorporated in the soil.
In-situ Manuring by Plants (Green Manuring): From the time immemorial, the
turning in green manuring crop especially legume for improving the soil productivity is
popular among the farmers.
If the green manure crop is grown and incorporated in same field, this type of green
manuring is referred to as green manuring in situ. Leguminous crops produce around 15
ton biomass per hectare which adds about 50 kg nitrogen per hectare into the soil.
Commonly Grown Green Manure Crops are: Dhaincha, Indigo, Rostrata,
Sesbania, Wild indigo, Sunhemp and Pillipesara
<strong>Resource</strong> <strong>Book</strong> on Horticulture Nursery Management : 64