Optimum Nutrient Rate and Nutritional Constraints in Tuber Crops Growing in Ultisol of India with Special Emphasis on Tannia

Abstract

Tuber crops are generally grown in marginal lands with low native soil fertility. In India, laterite soils (acidic Ultisols) are the major soils for tropical tuber crops and are poor in innate fertility. Among tropical tuber crops, some have adapted to poor soils, such as cassava, whereas others such as tannia (Xanthosoma sagittifolium L.) cannot establish well in these soils and may manifest nutritional disorders, which ultimately result in the complete devastation of the crop. Therefore, we investigated the effects from a preliminary rate trial (PRT) and nutrient-omission pot trial (NOPT) using maize as a test crop and a NOPT with tannia to determine the optimum nutrient rate and limiting nutrients, as well as nutritional problems affecting the growth and yield of tannia. Each experiment was laid out in a complete randomized design with three replications and was conducted for both garden and paddy soils. The PRT revealed that the optimum nutrient requirements for the soils were different, with garden soils requiring nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), sulfur (S), boron (B), zinc (Zn), and molybdenum (Mo) at 200, 60, 160, 70, 60, 50, 4, 8, and 0.8 kg ha−1, respectively, and paddy soil requiring twice these rates. The NOPT indicated that in addition to N, P, K, B, and Mo in both garden and paddy soils, Ca and Zn in paddy soils and S in garden soils were the constraining nutrients. The NOPT carried out with tannia indicated that the main nutritional problem was subsoil acidity-induced multinutrient deficiencies involving K, Ca, and Mg