Soil Science & Agricultural Chemistry Future Strategies

Future Strategies

1. Soil Resource Inventory

  • Soil resource inventory and mapping of TNAU farms.
  • Soil resource inventory for exploring the potentialities and constraints of soil for crop productivity.
  • Generation of thematic maps on soil resources.

2. Soil Health Assessment and Management

  • Geospatial delineation and reassessment of secondary and micronutrient status in soils of Tamil Nadu.
  • STCR – IPNS prescriptions for crops and cropping systems including fertigation.
  • Secondary and micronutrient fertilizer optimization for agricultural and horticultural crops.
  • Impact of Long-term organic and inorganic nutrient management on soil biochemical and biological processes for soil health sustainability.
  • Soil carbon management for sustaining soil health.
  • Harnessing rhizosphere micro flora for improving soil health.

3. Developing and Evaluating Nutrient Mixtures and Formulations

  • Developing and evaluating nutrient mixtures and formulations for improving the yield and quality of crops.
  • Development, characterization and evaluation of new chelated and liquid formulations for improving crop productivity and nutrient use efficiency of crops (including multi micronutrients for foliar nutrition of crops).
  • Development and evaluation of water soluble fertilizers for fertigation and precision farming.
  • Characterising and understanding the growing media of crops with special reference to roof gardens.

4. Enhancing Resources use Efficiency / Reducing cost of Production

  • Acquisition of fixed nutrients in soil and techniques for improving their bio availability for increased nutrient use efficiency.
  • Enhancing nutrient use efficiency through organics and bio-resources.
  • Exploiting genotypic variability for effective nutrient utilisation.
  • Use of sensors for soil moisture and crop nutrient management.
  • Nutrient optimization in crops and cropping system through tracer techniques.
  • Soil-plant-microbe interactions in rhizosphere for enhancing nutrient use efficiency.
  • Fixing DRIS norms for effective nutrient management in perennial crops.

5. Enhancement of nutritional quality of crops

  • Bio fortification technologies for enriching nutrients in crop produce.
  • Strategies for crop quality improvement.
  • Identifying and improving active principles in commercial agricultural and horticultural crops.

6. Soil nutrient stress and mitigation

  • Diagnosis and mitigation of soil constraints and nutrient stress.
  • Screening and evaluating genotypes / varieties for nutrient stress, salinity, sodiciy and elevated CO2 levels and soil temperature.
  • Evaluation of controlled release fertilisers/ organo chemical fertilisers for mitigating soil nutrient stress.

7. Degraded soils and poor quality water management

  • Assessment of soil constraints and their management.
  • Assessing the heavy metal contamination in soils and their remediation.
  • Hydro chemical assessment of water quality for irrigation and its management/ cost effective reclamation techniques.

8. Impact of Agro-chemicals on soil, water and plant ecosystem

  • Studying the persistence and degradation of agro-chemicals in different soil eco-system.
  • Quantifying agro chemical residues in crop produces and developing technologies to minimise the residue levels in crops.
  • Impact of agro-chemicals on ground water quality and preventive measures to nullify its effect.

9. Nutrient Management in Organic Agriculture

  • Developing organic nutrient management protocol for various crops.
  • Standardising biomass recycling techniques