Assessment of Wheat Productivity Enhancement by Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) using Remote Sensing

Integrated nutrient management (INM) is a widely used practice to enhance crop productivity where bio-organic amendments coupled with chemical fertilizers are used. Therefore, a field experiment is performed to assess the productivity enhancement of wheat through the combined application of bio-fertilizer and chemical fertilizers including Phosphorus (P), Nitrogen (N), Potassium (K), Boric Acid (B), and Zinc Sulphate (Zn). The drone multispectral & optical data along with the Landsat-8 OLI data are collected, where various vegetation indices are computed to deeply analyze crop growth. Google Earth data is also used to estimate crop height, which gives important insights into the crop's health. To validate the experimental results, several yield agronomic traits are recorded, such as plant height, grains/spike, number of tillers/m2, grain weight, straw yield, and grain yield per hectare. Moreover, the percentage concentration of N, P, and K in grain and straw are estimated using atomic absorption spectroscopy. The wheat grain yield is recorded as 4.3 tonnes ha(-1) by the INM approach, which is 26% more than the farmer's practice. This study shows that INM has great potential for supplying plant nutrients and making wheat more productive in a sustainable way.