Use of indigenous sources of sulphur in soils of eastern India for higher crops yield and quality: A review

Agricultural Reviews, 37 (2) 2016 : 117-124 Print ISSN:0253-1496 / Online ISSN:0976-0539 AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATION CENTRE www.arccjournals.com Use of indigenous sources of sulphur in soils of eastern India for higher crops yield and quality: A review Surendra singh* and S.K. Singh Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi -221 005, India. Received: 06-02-2015 Accepted: 09-03-2016 DOI:10.18805/ar.v0iof.9626 ABSTRACT Sulphur is the fourth most important nutrient after nitrogen, phosphorus and zinc for Indian Agriculture. Large quantities of indigenous S sources such as mined gypsum, pyrite and by-product phosphogypsum are available in the country. Research efforts have been directed to evaluate suitability of these indigenous S sources as sulphur fertilizer in soils and crops of eastern India. The magnitude of S deficiency widely differed in soils of eastern states. Among different crops oilseeds were found more responsive to S application than pulses and cereals. The dose of most of the crops ranged between 20 to 60 kg ha -1 except sugarcane which profitably responded at 80 kg ha -1. Basal soil application of gypsum and phosphogypsum were found to be superior than that of pyrites. However, pyrites resulted in higher crop response on residual sulphur in various cropping systems. In addition to yield, application of S improved the quality of crop produce also. Protein content in cereals and pulses, oil content in oil seeds and sugar content in sugarcane were appreciably increased due to S application. Replenishment of sulphur in soil can be made through the use of indigenous sources of sulphur for achieving higher crops yield and quality in eastern states of India. Key words : Available sulphur status, Crops yield, Quality of crop produce, S management in cropping systems. An adequate supply of plant nutrient is essential in impoverished soils for higher crop production and product quality. Sulphur deficiency is widespread in many Indian soils and crops. Sulphur resembles to nitrogen in its role and function in plant. Its requirement by crop is as much to that of phosphorus. Sulphur performs many physiological functions in oilseeds and pulses like synthesis of S containing amino-acids, namely, cystine, cystein and methionine. Sulphur increases the oil content of oilseeds. The sulphur requirement of oilseeds and pulses is fairly high in comparison to the other cereals and millets. There is drastic change in the production and nutritive value of crop produce due to absence of S. In S deficient soils, generally all crops respond to sulphur application. But in case of oilseeds and pulses, the response is higher. Average removal of sulphur by 1 tonne of oilseeds ranges between 8-12 kg by pulses 4-8 kg as compared to 3.5 kg S by cereals. Similarly, oilseeds from one hectare remove sulphur between 10 and 25 kg and that of pulses 5-10 kg annually which depends upon the crop, soil and environmental factors. The intensification of agriculture with high yielding crop varieties with multiple cropping coupled with use of high analysis S -free chemical fertilizers along with restricted use of organic manure have resulted in depletion of the soil S reserve. The soils of eastern states have not been exploited to such an extent as the soils of north western part of the country, hence S deficiency in eastern states will become a *Corresponding author s e-mail: ssinghssac@yahoo.co.in. major problem. In recent years, the importance of sulphur in crop production has been well recognized. Acid producing nature of ammonium sulphate and ammonium phosphate sulphate and fixation of P with addition of water soluble P sources such as SSP reveal the need to test indigenous materials such as gypsum, phosphogypsum and low grade pyrites as source of S for crops. In this paper, an attempt has been made to compile the scattered information on magnitude of S deficiency, crop responses of S to application of indigenous S sources and effect of S on quality of crop produce in soils of eastern states. Available sulphur status : The magnitude of S deficiency in some soils of eastern states have been presented in Table 1. In Bihar, the extent of S deficiency tended to increase from northern to southern part in general. Sulphur deficiency was found to the extent of 20.0 per cent in calcareous soils of Northern part and 37.0 per cent in non calcareous soils of southern part (Sakal, 1995; Sakal et al.1996). Majority of the soil samples showed deficient level of available S to the tune of 56.0 per cent in Jharkhand state covering large number of soil series and different blocks under three agroclimatic sub zones (Singh et al. 1996). The available S in soils of eastern U.P. showed deficiency to the extent of 68.0 per cent (Tiwari et al. 2003). Most of the soils of Mirzapur district and lesser soils from Ballia district are prone to S deficiency. Red and lateritic, coastal sands and alluvial soils of Orissa are more prone to S deficiency to the extent of

118 AGRICULTURAL REVIEWS Table :1 Extent of S deficiency in soils of eastern states. States Soil type Deficient level of S (%) References Bihar (Northern0 Calciorthents 20.0 Sakal. 1995 Bihar (Southern plain) Paleustalfs 37.0 Sakal et al. 1996 Jharkhand Alfisols 56.0 Singh et al.1996 Eastern UP Inceptisols 68.0 Tiwari et al. 2003 Orissa Ultisols 88.0 Mishra et al. 1990 West Bengal Entisols 28.0 Chatopadhya and Ghosh 2006 Average All soil type 49.5 88.0 per cent (Mishra et al.1990)). Sulphur deficiency in Entisols of west Bengal was reported to the tune of 28 per cent (Chattopadhyay and Ghosh, 2006). Availability of indigenous sulphur sources Gypsum: Gypsum is a widely occurring mineral that has been used for many years as a soil conditioner and ameliorant for sodic and heavy clay soils and as a nutrient source of Ca and S for plant growth. However, recent research has shown that utility of gypsum can be extended to acid, infertile soils as an ameliorant for sub soil acidity, surface crusting and source of Ca and S for crops.gypsum is available for agricultural use from mines. Its use as sources of S nutrient for plants is increasingly becoming cost effective. The total reserves of gypsum in the country are about 1,004 million tones. About 940 million tones or 90 % of the total are located mainly in Jodhpur, Nagaur and Bikaner districts of Rajsthan (Rohtagi et al. 1977). The deposits of gypsum in India are estimated to be about one billions tones, 90 per cent of which is located in Rajasthan. Two major producers of mineral gypsum in India are the Rajsthan State Mines and Mineral Ltd.(RSMM) and the Fertilizer Corporation of India (FCI). Some gypsum is also mined by Rajsthan State Mineral Development Corporation (RSMDC). About 250-300 thousand tones of gypsum are being sold in the agricultural sector for use as a soil amendment and as a sulphur fertilizer. Phosphogypsum: Large quantities of by-product gypsum, commonly called phosphogypsum are available from industries manufacturing phosphoric acid by wet process in which rockphosphate is treated with sulphuric acid. Calcium sulphate in phosphogypsum is available as dehydrate, hemihydrate and anhydrate or in combination of dehydratehemihydrate etc. depending upon the process involved in phosphoric acid production. For every tonne of phosphoric acid thus produced, about 4.0-5.5 tonnes of phosphogypsum is generally obtained. In other words for every tonne of rockphosphate used, about 1.5 tonnes of phosphogypsum is generated.in the manufacture of phosphoric acid from rockphosphate employing sulphuric acid, gypsum is produced as a byproduct in its hydrated form and is referred to as phosphogypsum to distinguish it from naturally occurring gypsum. Besides its use as such, phosphogypsum is a valuable material for use in agriculture as it contains some quantities of phosphorus besides sulphur and calcium. In India, major producers of phosphogypsum are CFL, FACT, GSFC,RCF,HLL,SPIC and PPL. The estimated production of phosphogypsum was of the order of 1.59 million tones (FAI, 1992-93). Pyrites: Pyrites (FeS 2 ) is a mineral containing iron and sulphur. In India, deposites of pyrites occur Amjhore in Bihar, Saladipur in Rajsthan and Ingaldohal in Karnataka. The largest deposits of pyrites in the country are in Amjhore and the reserve are estimated to be about 385 million tones (mt). The pyrite of Amjhore is highly pyrophoric in nature and immediately reacts with air and water to form sulphuric acid and iron sulphate. In addition, vast quantities of pyrites shales (10 per cent S) amounting to 1500 million tones also occur in this area. The Saladipur deposits (about 85 mt) contain nearly 30 per cent S. The Ingaldohal deposites (>1mt) on an average contains 20 per cent S. The total pyrites reserve in India amounts to about 2 billion tones. Pyrites are found in two categories, high grade and low grade. High grade pyrites is used for manufacture of sulphuric acid. Lowgrade pyrites is not suitable for industrial utilization. It mainly contains 20 % iron and 22 % sulphur. It is, therefore, quite likely that its application might improve the nutrient regimes of the soils and ultimately affect plant growth. Agricultural grade pyrite is being distributed primarily as a soil amendment. However, its use is being promoted as a source of sulphur for different crops in a wide variety of soils (Awasthi and Shaha, 1998). Response of indigenous sourcres of sulphur in crops: Responses of different crops to application of indigenous S sources are presented in Table 2. Response of sulphur differed widely among crops grown in eastern states of India. In Assam (Barbora, 1955 and Patgiri, 1995), application of S gave significant increase of tea leaf and toria grain yield up to 20.2 and 6.6 per cent, respectively with application of 20 kg S ha -1 as gypsum. However, response of pyrites was found to be in lower magnitude in yield of tea leaf as compared to applied 20 kg S ha -1 as gypsum. In calcareous soils of north Bihar (Sakal et al., 1995-96), grain yield of rice, wheat and maize increased appreciably with addition of 40 kg S ha -1 and ranged from 29.4 to 33.0 percent, respectively. Application of 80 kg S ha -1 resulted in increase of 32.4 per cent sugarcane yield. The response of S sources was studied in alluvial soils of eastern U.P. for wheat, rice, chickpea, pigeonpea, lentil, blackgram, greengram, groundnut, safflower, mustard, toria, and sesame. Among

Table 2: Response of indigenous S sources to crops in eastern India Manisha, 1997 Volume 37 Issue 2 (2016) 119

120 AGRICULTURAL REVIEWS the crops, the yield response was recorded at 30-50 kg, 30 kg and 40 kg S ha -1, respectively in oilseeds, pulses and cereals. Response to various S sources varied from 17.0-63.7, 10.7-59.8 and 12.0-40.9 per cent in oilseeds, pulses and cereals, respectively (Maurya et al.1992; Sahu and Nayak,1997;Singh et al.,1985; Tiwari, 1989 and 1990;Tiwari et al.,1992; Tiwari, 1995 and Tiwari et al. 2003). Oilseeds were most responsive to S application followed by pulses and cereals. Large number of field experiments were conducted with indigenous S sources on responses of S to oilseeds, pulses and vegetables grown in acidic red loam soils of Jharkhand (Singh et al., 2000; Singh et al., 1998; Singh, 2008 and Singh, 2011). Results revealed that the optimum rates of S is 40-60 kg ha -1 in oilseeds (niger, mustard and groundnut), 20-30 kg S ha -1 in pulses and 60 kg S ha -1 in vegetables (cowpea, french bean, onion and garlic). Crops response ranged from 26.3 to 40.0 per cent in oilseeds, 17.0-26.1 per cent in pulses and 26.4 to 87.0 per cent in vegetables. The response of S on groundnut, mustard and rice was studied with addition of gypsum and phosphogypsum in red and lateritic soils of Orissa (Ankineedu, 1983; Mishra, 1995 and Sahu and Nanda, 1997). Crop response varied from 17.0-53.0 per cent at 30 to 60 kg ha -1 of applied S. In West Bengal (Bhattacharya and Manisha, 1997; Mandal and Chatterjee, 1990 and Mukhopadhya and Mukhopadhya, 1995), yield response in rice, mustard, seasmum and groundnut ranged between 8.4 to 46.0 per cent with application of 20-50 kg S ha -1. Indigenous sulphur sources in cropping systems: Results pertaining to direct and residual effects of indigenous S sources in cropping systems of eastern India are summarized in Table 3. In general, application of S benefits more than one crop grown in sequence and produces a significant residual response. Residual response depends on levels of S application, nature of S source and crops. The direct and residual effects of phosphogypsum was evaluated in rice - wheat cropping system on sandy loam calcareous soils of Bihar (Sakal et al. 1999). The rice yield increased by 31.1 per cent and the yield of wheat grown on residual sulphur increased by 17.7 percent. Application of pyrites in lentilgroundnut cropping system also increased the grain yield of lentil and pod yield of groundnut grown in a sequence by 44.0 and 41.0 per cent, respectively (Sakal and Singh, 1997). The data of two field experiments conducted in acidic soils of Jharkhand revealed significant direct and residual response of S in cropping systems of mustard-black gram and ricepea (Sarkar and Singh, 2003). Application of 60 kg S ha -1 as phosphogypsum increased mustard grain yield by 2.4 q ha -1 and that of succeeding black gram grain yield by 2.0 q ha -1. Application of 30 kg S ha -1 added through phosphogypsum also increased the yield of rice by 17.2 per cent where as the yield of succeeding pea grown on residual sulphur increased by 21.8 per cent in rice pea cropping system. The direct and residual effects of pyrites was examined in mustardgroundnut, groundnut-mustard and blackgram-lentil cropping systems in alluvial soils of eastern U.P. (Singh et al., 1991 and Singh et al., 1992). Gypsum was evaluated in three cropping systems viz; mustard-rice, wheat-rice and ricewheat to direct and residual response of added S (Tiwari et al.,1992). The yield increase in main crops as direct effect of S application in cropping systems varied from a low of 5.8 per cent in wheat to a high of 37.9 per cent in black gram. In the second crop grown on residual sulphur in different cropping systems, the yield increases were 5.0 to 45 per cent. Significant yield improvement by 13.1 per cent in rice and 19.3 per cent in succeeding wheat were recorded due to application of 60 kg S ha -1 as gypsum in rice groundnut cropping system of Orissa (Sahu and Nayak, 1999-2000). Indigenous sulphur sources in quality of crop produce : Sulphur applied to crops on S deficient soils not only increased crop yields but also favourably affects quality such as oil content in oil seeds and protein content in pulses. Effect of indigenous S source on quality of crops produced in the states of Bihar, eastern U.P., Jharkhand and Orissa are presented in Table 4. Application of 40 kg S ha -1 as phosphogypsum increased the protein content in rice, wheat and maize grain by 1.3, 1.6 and 1.8 per cent over their respective controls (Sakal et al. 1995-96). The sugar content to a tune of 0.8 per cent in sugar cane crop was also increased due to 80 kg ha -1 of S added through phosphogypsum (Sakal et al., 1995-96). Oil content in groundnut was increased by 8.3 percent with added 40 kg S ha -1 of through gypsum. In eastern part of U.P., application of 30-88 kg S ha -1 as pyrite increased the oil content (Singh et al., 1985 and Singh et al. 1989) in mustard and groundnut by3.9 and 6.2 per cent and protein content in chick pea, black gram, lentil and pigeon pea by 7.3, 25.1, 17.8 and 6.0 per cent, respectively(singh et al. 1991 and Singh et al., 1992). Application of gypsum and phosphogypsum as sulphur fertilizer in acidic soils of Jharkhand showed the significant influence of S in increasing oil content in oilseeds and protein content in pulses. This resulted in an increased oil content by 3.7 per cent in mustard, 6.6 per cent in groundnut, 10.6 per cent in niger and 24.7 per cent in soybean (Singh et al., 1998; Singh and Singh, 1996; Singh et al, 2003 and Singh et al., 2006). Similar increase in protein content due to S was recorded in black gram and lentil by 5.5 and 18.7 per cent, respectively. Groundnut in Orissa produced maximum oil content at application of 30 kg S ha -1 as gypsum (Sakal, 1995 ; Sahu and Nayak, 1999-2000). CONCLUSIONS Soils of eastern India are deficient in plant available suphur to the tune of 49.5 per cent. This assessment confirmed for more incidence of S deficiency in light textured soils of Jharkhand, Orissa and eastern part of UP than heavy

Table 3: Response of indigenous S sources in cropping systems Volume 37 Issue 2 (2016) 121

122 AGRICULTURAL REVIEWS Table 4: Effect of indigenous s sources on quality of crop produce

textured calcareous soils of Bihar. Application of gypsum, phosphogypsum and pyrites is recommended as S fertilizer@ 20 to 80 kg ha -1 in S deficient soils of eastern part of India for augmenting higher productivity of oilseeds, pulses, cereals, vegetables and sugarcane crop. Soil application of gypsum and phosphogypsum were found to be superior as Volume 37 Issue 2 (2016) 123 compared to pyrites. However, pyrites has a better residual effect on succeeding crops grown on residual available S in a cropping system. Spectacular increase in product quality such as oil content in oilseeds, protein content in cereals and pulses and sugar content in sugarcane was obtained due to S application through use of indigenous sources of S. REFERENCES Ankineedu, G. (1983).Advances in fertilizer management for rainfed oilseeds. Fertilizer News 28: 76-90, 105. Awasthi, U.S. and Shaha, S.K. (1998). Supply and availability of sulphur fertilizers in India. Proc. TSI. FAI, Symp. 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