Govt prepares soil fertility map, finds grave deficiencies

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 1

A large part of state’s agriculture land is severely deficient in zinc, iron, manganese and sulphur. The information came to the fore in the soil fertility map for all farmlands in the state prepared by the government.

Aimed at improving soil nutrition and crop production besides checking mindless use of chemical fertilisers, the soil fertility map has been prepared, said KS Pannu, Mission Director, Tandarust Punjab Mission.

The departments of agriculture and farmers welfare under the Soil Health Card Scheme collected nearly 17 lakh soil samples from 12,581 villages and prepared 20 lakh soil health cards. Thereafter, the data was used to generate soil fertility map using the GPS of land holding of each soil card holder.

It was found that 1.09 lakh fields were found deficient in zinc, 0.99 lakh sulphur, 1.10 lakh iron and 4.55 lakh manganese. The cooperative societies have been directed to maintain adequate supply of NPK and MOP for potash deficient areas and zinc sulphate and gypsum in zinc and sulphur deficient areas, respectively, so that farmers may be provided the same in time.

Now, the exercise is on to prepare the soil fertility maps block-wise and install them in 12,581 villages of 150 blocks in the state. Pannu said the soil fertility had been checked for eight main nutrients — organic carbon, phosphorus, potash, sulphur, soil pH, zinc, iron and manganese.