Phosphate fertilizer premixing with farmyard manure enhances phosphorus availability in calcareous soil for higher wheat productivity.

Fixation reactions reduce the concentration of soluble phosphorus (P) and affect crop growth in alkaline calcareous soils. In lab and greenhouse studies, phosphoric acid (PA) or diammonium phosphate (DAP) were evaluated at various P rates (0, 18, 36 and 54 mg kg-1 soil), either as non-mix (designated as NM-PA and NM-DAP, respectively) or after premixing with farmyard manure (FYM) at 400 mg kg-1 soil (designated as PM-PA and PM-DAP, respectively). The amended soil was incubated at 25 °C and 70% water holding capacity for 7 weeks; thereafter, 32P dynamics were measured using the Freundlich kinetic model. A greenhouse study was also conducted using the same thirteen treatments (as used in incubation experiment) and wheat cultivar (Galaxy 2013) was grown following standard agronomic practices. The results showed that application of PM-PA at the highest rate, which caused maximum change in Pr (ΔPr = 59%) in laboratory condition, also produced maximum P uptake by grain (190.3 mg pot-1) and grain yield (44.1 g pot-1) of wheat in greenhouse experiment. Similarly, regression analysis showed that an increase in Pr values caused a corresponding increase in crop parameters. The results suggested that pre-mixing P fertilizer with FYM could be a viable technique to increase P supply and enhance productivity of wheat in alkaline calcareous soils.