Chapter 37 - Climate-smart integrated soil fertility management in fruit crops: An overview

Abstract

Productivity of any fruit crop depends essentially on the two premier facts, nutrient balance and biological activity. Fruit crops offer a strong sink for sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide and, thereby, aid in moderating the impact of climate change-related issues. The paradigm shift from purely inorganic to either organic fertilizers or in combination with chemical fertilizers started gaining wide-scale use for enhanced biogeochemical nutrient soil cycling. This change of concept later formed the basis for Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM)-based strategy involving three basic components, namely, microbial inoculants (biofertilizers), inorganic fertilizers, and organic fertilizers. The approach involving multiple microbial inoculation along with enrichment of organic manures through inorganic fertilizers known as substrate is increasingly realized to engineer nutrient dynamics within the rhizosphere. Better responsiveness of soil microbial biomass over chemically available nutrient pool of soil to nutrient input has led to an increased interest in measuring the quantum of nutrients held microbially. This has advocated a possibility of using changes in microbial biomass as a potential diagnostic tool of fertility measurement under ISFM practices, as best for improved organic carbon sequestration and soil microbial indices in addition to postharvest shelf life of fruits compared with fruits raised on exclusive use of chemical fertilizers. The other approaches involving multiple microbial inoculation along with enrichment of organic manures through inorganic fertilizers known as substrate have further been highlighted to provide an understanding of mechanism involved in C stabilization in soils for regulating soil C sequestration and associated nutrient dynamics under ISFM-based production system in fruit crops.