IIT-KGP researchers develop technology to improve efficiency in fertiliser application

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur havedeveloped a soil-mapping technology to bring efficiency in theuse of fertilisers in farmland, a statement issued by theinstitute said.

The countrys food security programme largely relieson soil health and aims at increasing productivity and keepinginorganic components in check, it said.

The differential global positioning system-enabledtechnology will facilitate cultivators to use nitrogen,phosphorus and potash (NPK) efficiently for automated soilnutrition management, the statement said.

This technology would be able to reduce 30 per cent offertilisers used in manual methods, IIT Kharagpur directorprofessor V K Tewari said.

He, along with his former research scholar Sneha Jhafrom the Department of Agricultural and Food Engineeringexplored a method of creating a soil nutrition map that can beaccessed in real-time through a differential globalpositioning system for variable application of NPKfertilisers, the institute said on Wednesday.

“We divided one hectare of land into 36 grids with thenutritional requirement of each grid fed in the soil map. Thefertiliser applicator vehicle, fitted with a DGPS module andgraphic user interface-enabled microprocessor cummicrocontroller can access this map and compute in real-timethe variable rates in the fertiliser application,” Tewarisaid.

The professor also said the innovation will ensuresubstantial savings in resource applications.

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