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Development Of Site-Specific Fertilizer Management Systems For Sustainable Crop Production - TCP/SRL/3606

Year of publication 2020

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 6

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Project

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) In Sri Lanka, farmers began to apply imported inorganic fertilizer in the late 1950s. In 2005, the country initiateda programme to increase productivity, under which the use of agrochemicals rose dramatically. This was aggravated by a fertilizer subsidy scheme introducedin the same year. The high use of fertilizer made cropsmore susceptible to pest and disease attacks and encouraged weed growth, as well as promoting landdegradation and environmental contamination. Inresponse to this, MoA initiated the testing of soil samplesin 2016 with the eventual aim of developing a site-specificfertilizer application scheSri Lanka cultivates rice onaround 1 million ha per year, and a larger area is coveredif other crops are included. As it was unfeasible to analysethe large number of samples required to generatesite-specific fertilizer recommendations (SSFRs) for thewhole country, a more practical approach, involvingthe use of suitable field kits, was required. However, the capacity of the country’s laboratories and, in particular,of the Central Soil Testing Laboratory remainedinsufficient.

Language English

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