Soil Fertility and Nutrient management (1+1)

Consumption of phosphorus by plants

• Phosphorus application, unlike N is known to benefit the growth and productivity of more than one crop in rotation. The residual P contributes more of P to crop nutrition. Responses to applied P depend on soil properties, initial available P, variety, level of N applied and management practices.
• Phosphorus is absorbed as phosphate ions such as H2PO4- and HPO42- form. It is concentrated more in the reproductive parts of plant and in seeds. Harvested crops contain considerable amounts of P. In general, seed crops contain largest percentages of P, and forage crops contain moderate percentages.
• Consumption of ‘P’ by the crops is very less after their application to soil and it accounts even less than 10 % and remaining amount will be useful later. This is mainly because; P is subjected to immobilization or fixation (retention/adsorption/precipitation/sorption) and undergoes various transformations which render it unavailable to plants.
• P fertilizers are not easily and completely soluble in water and their mobility is less within the soil. Therefore in order to get maximum benefit from them we have to adopt suitable methods and time of application.