NEEM COATED UREA AN ECO-FRIENDLY APPROACHES (original) (raw)
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NEEM COATED UREA A PHILOSOPHY FOR ENVIRONMENT
Ever since the declaration of 100% neem coated urea by India Government, the number of neem trees is increasing continuously in India Neem coated urea requires neem oil, more urea more oil and trees also required more. When it comes to oil, neem plants are rather promising. Probably no other plant yields as many exploitable by-products and benefits. Earlier, 100% Neem Coated Urea was made mandatory in 2015. A study conducted by the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare had found the effects of Neem Coating of Urea as follows: Improvement in soil health. Reduction in costs with respect to plant protection chemicals, more neem tree more clean environment. Neem (Azadirachta indica A. Juss) is a unique tree with its great religious, medicinal, ornamental and multifunctional values. By rough estimates, India currently has about 20 million neem trees. This paper described how plantation of neem trees in India increased drastically and how to manage ecologically very special. Neem is ecologically very special. It can tolerate very high levels of pollution and has the capacity to recover even if most of its foliage is dropped. Plants with a large leaf area such as neem accumulate relatively higher quantities of lead. Trees vary widely in their capacity to absorb pollutants like particulate dust, CO 2 , oxides of sulphur and nitrogen. Coating of urea with neem is environmentally also advantages because firstly, a reduced solubility of urea keeps contamination of ground water under control and secondly, the coating reduces ammonia volatilization and controls atmospheric pollution. This environmental friendly endeavor can be converted into economic boon for farmers also. The hardy and multipurpose neem tree holds tremendous potential in sustainable farming systems across the world.
Agronomic Benefits of Neem Coated Urea – A Review Executive summary
Urea constitutes about 82% of the fertilizer nitrogen (N) used in India. Nitrification inhibitors when applied along with urea reduce losses of applied N thereby resulting in improved yield of crops. In early 1970s, it was observed that oil extracted from the seeds of neem (Azadirachta indica A. Juss), a tall perennial tree growing widely in the tropics and subtropics, and the cake left after oil extraction possess nitrification inhibition properties. Since then more than 75 studies have been conducted to compare the performance of urea coated with neem cake (NCU) or neem oil (NOCU) in increasing the yield of rice, wheat, and several other crops vis-à-vis uncoated urea. In 2015, the Government of India directed that all fertilizer urea manufactured in the country or imported will have to be coated with neem oil at the rate of 0.5 kg per tonne. This decision was motivated not only by the better performance of NOCU vis-à-vis uncoated urea, but also by an expectation that it will lead to reduced consumption of urea. As a side effect, NOCU is also expected to prevent industrial uses of subsidized urea intended to be used in agriculture only. Based on research published in peer reviewed journals, the present review attempts to assess agronomic benefits of replacing urea with NOCU in terms of increased crop production and/or reduced demand for fertilizer N in India. Depending upon the concentration of triterpenoids or neem bitters, the active nitrification inhibitor compounds, neem cake, extract or oil have been used in different quantities to coat urea. Although mean increase in the grain yield of rice and wheat by applying NCU/NOCU was around 5 to 6 % over the yields obtained by urea at same N level, in about 30% comparisons no increase was observed. As observed increase in yields have been obtained in researcher's plots, the yield benefits of using NOCU should be considerably less when managed by farmers. Same applies to other crops such as sugarcane, cotton where also respectively, 8.7 and 4.3 % increase in yields have been recorded in researcher's plots. There is large variation in fertilizer N rate for different crops depending upon land holding size, whether crop is irrigated or unirrigated and also because some farmers are accustomed to use heavy doses of fertilizer N. According to principles of fertilizer evaluation, the difference between the performances of the two sources narrows down at high application rates. Further, the nitrification inhibitors perform better in irrigated than in rainfed crops and in acidic soil conditions than in neutral and alkaline soils. As more than 50% of the total urea consumed in India is applied to rice and wheat, and more than 30% is applied to rainfed crops, overall impact of coating all urea supplied to farmers with neem is likely to be small. With same general recommendations for managing urea and NOCU, a reduction in demand in fertilizer N cannot be expected. A perception that when farmers will get higher yields they will reduce the dose of NOCU as compared to urea may not work if the yield gains due to replacing of urea with NOCU are small and many a times not visible. Also, farmers will not readily cut down the fertilizer dose to avoid any risk for obtaining lower yields. Possibly, applying NOCU following the site-specific nutrient management principles will lead to production of yield levels higher than or similar to that obtained with untreated urea but with lower rates of application. Agronomic Benefits of Neem Coated Urea – A Review 2
The paper intended to new research of Urea Coating with Neem,the slow release of Nitrogen i.e to improve efficiency of Urea.Slow down the process of nitrification of urea 2) Enhance the yield by 48% 3) Decrease urea requirement, hence save money
Asian Journal of Soil Science, 2012
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) are grown sequentially in an annual rotation constituting a rice-wheat (RW) cropping system and is a dominating system being practiced an ~85 per cent of the cultivated area in Punjab. The nitrogen (N) requirement of these crops in the region is being met through urea (46% N) and through an extensive research it has been substantiated that of the total quantity of applied N through urea, ~50–70 per cent is subjected leaching, ammonia volatilization and denitrification losses. According to Singh and Singh (2003) N use/recovery efficiency in RW cropping system rarely exceeds 30-40 per cent. The improvement in the N efficiency is, therefore, of prime importance, not only for achieving and sustaining high crop grain yield but also to protect the natural resources from degradation. The use of slow release N-fertilizers such as
Neem Coated Urea (NCU), An Efficient Nitrogen Source for Paddy Cultivation: A Review
Agricultural Reviews, 2021
Green revolution dramatically change the nitrogen application in paddy cultivation and day by day its demand increased but excessive and imbalanced use of nitrogen fertilizer has raised certain global concerns, also its low nitrogen use efficiency. Nitrogen is required in huge amounts for rice and supply of N in the right amount, at the right rate and at right time throughout the growing season is most important to increase the yield. Approximately 90% of the N-fertilizer applied worldwide is in the NH4+ form, which is rapidly oxidized to NO3- by soil nitrifier bacteria. Whereas, NCU temporarily delays the bacterial oxidation of the ammonium-nitrogen by depressing over a certain period of time the activity of Nitrosomonas bacteria in the soil. So far more than 75 studies have been conducted to study the performance of NCU in increasing the yield of rice and several other crops. In rice more than 30% of the urea consumed in India is applied, the mean increase in grain yield by replac...
Efficacy of neem coated urea (NCU) for enhancing productivity of low land rice (Oryza sativa L.)
Journal of Crop and Weed, 2020
A field experiment was conducted during kharif seasons of 2016 and 2017 to study the effect of dose and time of application of neem coated urea (NCU) on growth parameters, yield attributes, yield and economics of rice cultivated on silty clay loam soil of Malan, Himachal Pradesh. Results of experiment showed the superiority of NCU in improving growth and yield of transplanted rice as compared to prilled urea (without neem oil coating). Also, nitrogen application in three splits was significantly better than when either 100 % or 75 % N was applied at the time of transplanting. Application of 125% of recommended nitrogen through neem coated urea in three splits (50% basal + 25% MT + 25% PI) resulted in significantly higher yield attributes (number of panicles m-2, panicle length, number of grains panicle-1 and 1000-grain weight) as well as grain yield and straw yield and crop productivity while control treatment in which no nitrogen was applied resulted in the lowest value of yield at...