Development of Ash-coated Urea tablets For Sustainable Agriculture in Arid Regions

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.