Fertigation in Horticulture : A Guarantee to Economized Quality Production

Abstract

Doubling the farmers’ income through maximising production per unit drop of water and sustaining soil health is the national goal. Horticulture sector is currently witnessing paradigm shift from ‘yield maximisation’ to ‘enhancement of use efficiencies of irrigation water and nutrients’. Emphasis is on reducing excessive percolation of water along with precious nutrients beyond rhizosphere. Drip-fertigation system has been found to be very effective in achieving the judicious water and fertilizer use efficiency in horticultural crops. In the present day context, lot of emphasis is being given on improving the drip-fertigation practices for horticulture, where the crops are highly responsive to the needbased placement of water and nutrients. Adopting drip-fertigation has been found to increase the yields of horticultural crops by three-fold with the same quantities of water and nutrients. It has also been found to improve the quality of crop produce and help the growers in getting better price for their produce. Savings on irrigation water and fertilizer under drip-fertigation are 40-70% and 30-50%, respectively. Critical review of the research outcomes emanating from drip-fertigation strategy in horticultural crops is done in this paper.