3.4. Recommendation of balanced mineral fertilizers for
different cane producing zones
The doses of mineral fertilizers for achieving 100 Mg cane yield
ha-1 varied in different cane producing zones of Uttar
Pradesh (Table 8). Based on TYE, the greater nutrient will be required
for plant crop than ratoon compared to recommended dose of mineral
fertilizers (RDF) across the cane producing zones. The highest N
fertilizers required in WZ soils followed by EZ and CZ, while EZ soils
required greater amount of P and K followed by WZ and CZ for both plant
and ratoon crops. Nitrogen doses varied from 211−541, 170−344 and
260−474 kg N ha-1 with mean values of 348, 261 and 386
kg N ha-1 for plant crop, whereas 98−407, 59−222 and
144−344 kg N ha-1 with mean value of 226, 144 and 262
kg N ha-1 for ratoon crop in EZ, CZ and WZ,
respectively. Phosphorus doses ranged from 6–89, −4–70 and 23−88 with
mean value of 73, 33 and 55 kg P2O5ha-1 for plant crop, whereas slight lower P doses will
be require for ratoon crop which ranged from -12–58, −20−42 and 3–58
kg P2O5 ha-1 with mean
value of 45, 11 and 29 kg P2O5ha-1 in EZ, CZ and WZ, respectively. For plant crop,
the doses of K varied from 98–302, 83–241 and 62−277 kg
K2O ha-1 with mean value of 262, 152
and 211 kg K2O ha-1, whereas 61–209,
50–164 and 35–191 kg K2O ha-1 with
mean value of 180, 100 and 142 kg K2O
ha-1 required for ratoon crop in different cane
producing zones of Uttar Pradesh, respectively.