Jagdish Thind
Fazilka, June 19, 2019: District Fazilka has prepared soil fertility mapping of fertile agriculture land, evaluating which, it would be decoded that which land needs more nutrients, in which it's in abundance and specifically the land of which village would give high yield to the farmer.
Divulging more, the Deputy Commissioner Mr. Manpreet Singh Chhatwal said that to improve the soil nutrition and crop production in the state besides preventing unjustifiable use of chemical fertilizers, the Punjab government under its Tandarust Punjab Mission has launched this initiative. "The soil mapping evaluation is a potential tool for predicting fertilizer requirement for crops and farmers would be able to access the availability status of 8 nutrient in their fields with the help of this mapping and could reduce input costs for any crop", said Mr. Chhatwal adding that officers and employees of the Agriculture department have been erecting these maps in all the villages of the district.
Meanwhile, the Chief Agriculture Officer Dr. Manjit Singh said that officers of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department have collected 58,357 soil samples from all the villages of the district to prepare soil health cards of the fields of the farmers under Soil Health Card Scheme. He said that database of availability of nutrients has been prepared, which is further used to generate soil fertility mapping of land using the Global Positioning System (GPS). He further said that these nutrient maps are being erected in all 314 villages of the district.
DR. Manjit Singh informed that presence of 8 main nutrients including Organic Carbon, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sulfur, Zinc, Iron, Manganese and soil pH in soil fertility maps has been showcased through colour coding i.e. red denoting deficiency in soil, green for abundance and yellow shows normality of nutrients. He said that with its use, now, the farmers would be able to easily know that the land of which village will produce high yield besides requirement of fertilizers for the crop.
CAO informed that the soil fertility maps are being installed at common public places of the villages like cooperative societies, panchayats ghars, near Gurudwaras etc. so that maximum people could get benefit. He said that it is being ensured that all maps to be installed before the end of the paddy transplantation. He said that it has been noticed that improper use of fertilizers has adversely affected soil health and crop production besides increasing input costs. "This exercise coupled with the awareness campaign will hopefully yield positive results", he said, adding that department is holding awareness camps in all the villages to motivate the farmers to get benefit of these soil fertility maps. With these maps even a layman farmer could understand the availability of nutrients in his soil, he said.