On-farm evaluation of fertilizer recommendation methods: Impacts on rice yield and economic benefits in subtropical soils

Md. Enamul Haque (), Richard W. Bell (), Miaomiao Cheng (), Md. Abdus Satter (), Md. Baktear Hossain (), Md. Jahiruddin (), Md. Mofizur Rahman Jahangir (), Md. Aminul Islam (), Sohela Akhter (), Md. Monayem Miah () and A. K. M. Anisur Rahman ()

Agriculture and Food Sciences Research, 2025, vol. 12, issue 1, 54-68

Abstract: Bangladesh publishes fertilizer recommendations but most farmers do not use these recommendations. In this study, we tested the performance of the Fertilizer Recommendation Guide (FRG), Rice Crop Manager (RCM) and Soil Testing Kit (STK) for determining fertilizer requirements of monsoon rice (Oryza sativa L) against Farmers’ Fertilizer Practice (FFP). Rates of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur and zinc were determined by four methods and used on 72 farmer’s fields in five agro-ecological zones (AEZ) over two years. All methods produced significantly higher grain yield than FFP (4.12 t ha-1): they were 13.8%, 9.6% and 8.3% higher for STK, RCM and FRG, respectively. RCM didn’t perform consistently across the locations. Overall, the STK performed the best followed by FRG. The superiority of STK is attributed to its assessment of current soil status while the FRG recommendation is grounded on an older data set of soil analysis for each AEZ. The N dose was comparable among the methods while P dose was much higher for FFP, and RCM underestimated the K requirement of rice. Farmers declined to adopt the STK. By contrast, the supply of FRG information to the farmers by providing a simplified card with training is a simple and accessible technology.

Keywords: Adoption; FRG card; Nitrogen; Phosphorus; Potassium; Rice Crop Manager; Soil Test Kit; Sulfur; Zinc. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.asianonlinejournals.com/index.php/AESR/article/view/6819/2998 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aoj:agafsr:v:12:y:2025:i:1:p:54-68:id:6819

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Agriculture and Food Sciences Research from Asian Online Journal Publishing Group
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sara Lim ().