Abstract:
The formulation of plant nutrient tablet to alleviate nutrient deficiency in arid regions to
increase agricultural productivity, which can avoid nutrient loss, nutrient wastage, and
provide food security. Since nutrient-loaded ash is densified into tablets, ease of
handling and transportation is increased. Addition of binding materials, such as starch
solution, and fillers including Tragacanth gum produced harder tablets. In addition,
fillers create a bridge between the ash and binder particles. The best results were
obtained with 50% ash, 7% nutrient, 15% starch solution and 21% filler (Tragacanth
gum), and 7% lubricating agent having a hardness of 9.97 N/mm2
. This plant nutrient
tablet was made utilizing a single punch tablet press to densify a ash-nutrient
combination with starch. This fertilizer is designed to synchronize nutrient delivery in
accordance with plant requirements. It was proposed that nutrient-loaded ash tablets
might gradually release embedded nutrients in time for optimal nutrient absorption by
crops to overcome nutrient deficiency. FTIR and XRD analysis shows the presence of
Urea which were added as a source of Nitrogen during tablets formulation. After the
characterization, a pot experiment test was conducted with three treatments having four
replicates. Control (Soil), 25mgN Treatment, 35mgN Treatment 45mgN Treatment were
kept. For this, wheat crop was used as a test crop. All samples harvesting was done on
(60 days). Results showed that 25mgN Treatment gave exceptional results as the
maximum Shoot FM yield (0.71± 0.06 g), Root FM yield (0.55± 0.08 g), Plant height
(35.5± 2.64cm), Root length (17.75± 3.40 cm), chlorophyll content (24.7± 3.40), Root
DM yield (0.27± 0.03 g), No of leaves (5) and Shoot DM yield (0.35± 0.03 g), Leaf
Thickness (0.167±0.054), Phi2 (0.76±0.04), PhiNO (0.28±0.043), PhiNPQ
(0.53±0.384), Fm Prime (174.84±0.07), F0 Prime (219±49.36) from wheat was
recorded. The Nitrogen use efficiency is (33%) in treatment of 25mgN is higher than
17
35mgN treatment and 45mgN treatment. To sum it up we can conclude that the
NutriTab Nitrogen fertilizer tablets exhibit a high degree of durability that facilitates
easy transportation and a prolonged release profile upon application.
