IIT Kharagpur develop technology to improve efficiency in fertilizer application
The differential global positioning system-enabled technology will facilitate cultivators to use nitrogen, phosphorus and potash (NPK) efficiently for automated soil nutrition management, the statement said.
A team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur has developed a soil-mapping technology to bring efficiency in the use of fertilizers in farmland. The country's food security programme largely relies on soil health and aims at increasing productivity and keeping inorganic components in check, it said.
The differential global positioning system-enabled technology will facilitate cultivators to use nitrogen, phosphorus and potash (NPK) efficiently for automated soil nutrition management, the statement said.
This technology will be able to reduce 30 per cent of fertilisers used in manual methods, IIT Kharagpur director professor V K Tewari said.
Prof Tewari, along with his former research scholar Sneha Jha from the Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering explored a method of creating a soil nutrition map that can be accessed in real-time through a differential global positioning system for variable application of NPK fertilisers, the institute said in a statement.
"We divided one hectare of land into 36 grids with the nutritional requirement of each grid fed in the soil map. The fertiliser applicator vehicle, fitted with a DGPS module and graphic user interface-enabled microprocessor cum microcontroller can access this map and compute in real-time the variable rates in the fertiliser application," Prof Tewari said.
The professor also said the innovation will ensure substantial savings in resource applications.
A group of students and alumni of the IIT Kharagpur has also developed an eco-friendly method of using the banana leaf to preserve food and organic materials for a year without the use of any chemicals. The product, EcoDabba, has won the India Australia Circular Economy (I-ACE) Hackathon, IIT Kharagpur said in a statement.
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