Department of Plant Sciences

Balanced and integrated plant nutrient management is imperative in agricultural production system including its quality - more applicable to those of developing country in the world. Like arable land in wetland ecosystem, nitrogen and other essential key plant elements and its management is also an integral part for so many beneficial aquatic crops (food, non-food etc.). With this significant importance of IPNM, number of case studies were undertaken through TOT, TDET based integrated aquaculture research projects (NWDPRA, ICAR, DoLR, Govt. of India) suited to wetland ecosystem at different agro-climatic zones (NAZ, OAZ including Coastal zone) of Indian sub-continent. In field study, emphasize were paid for utilizing divergence of waste wetlands followed with adoption of improvised agro-techniques (IPN & its management) on nutritious, valuable and popular aquatic food crops [deep-water rice - Oryza sativa, water chestnut - Trapa bispinosa, makhana - Euryale ferox, water lily - Nymphaea and Colocasia] in rural farming community at different agro-zones. Major and other essential plant nutrients combined with organic (neem oilcake) and inorganic sources (N : P2O5 : K2O @ 20-60 : 30-40 : 20-40 kg ha–1) includes spray materials were considered in these extensive study. Production of rice grains (3.76 t ha–1), fresh nut of water chestnut (9.93 t ha–1), makhana seeds (3.24 t ha–1), stalks of water-lily (6.52 t ha–1) and corm includes stalk yield of Colocasia (86.8 t ha–1) including its nutritional quality was remarkably influenced with IPNM, even exhibited >2.5 folds, economically viable to the rural farming community.