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Micronutrient Deficiency Stress in Soils of India: Tackling it to Alleviate Hidden Hunger

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Soil Science: Fundamentals to Recent Advances

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Abstract

Micronutrients have a significant role towards achieving sustainable crop production. But, Indian soils are considerably poor in micronutrient fertility especially of zinc, iron, manganese, copper, boron and molybdenum as these have consistently been pulled out from the soil system due to repeated cultivation for a prolonged period without proper replenishment. The resultant stress in Indian soils related to micronutrient deficiencies has become a major limiting factor towards improved productivity and quality of crops grown in these soils. When deficiency reaches a severe level, plants start showing characteristic disease symptoms. However, under marginal deficiency, plants do not show any symptoms but results in lower yield and this situation is called ‘hidden hunger’. The problem of hidden hunger (micronutrient malnutrition, mainly of zinc and iron) is also alarming among human population, affecting mainly the masses in developing countries who are mostly dependent on poor quality plant products (obtained from soils suffering in micronutrient deficiency stress) for their daily energy requirement. Hence, there is need to understand the severity of micronutrient deficiency stress existing in soils of India and adopt suitable management practices aimed at increasing the soil available micronutrient pool in order to address the hidden hunger situation both in plants and human beings.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICAR-Research Complex for NEH Region, Umiam, Meghalaya, India

    Mahasweta Chakraborty & Debasish Chakraborty

  2. Regional Research Station (Terai Zone), Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari, Cooch Behar, West Bengal, India

    Prithusayak Mondal

  3. Division of Soil Resource Studies, ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India

    Ranjan Paul

Authors
  1. Mahasweta Chakraborty
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  2. Debasish Chakraborty
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  3. Prithusayak Mondal
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  4. Ranjan Paul
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Correspondence to Prithusayak Mondal .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Soil Science & Agricultural Chemistry, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

    Amitava Rakshit

  2. Soil Science & Agricultural Chemistry, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

    S.K Singh

  3. Institute of Environmental Science and Sustainability, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India

    P.C. Abhilash

  4. School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada

    Asim Biswas

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Chakraborty, M., Chakraborty, D., Mondal, P., Paul, R. (2021). Micronutrient Deficiency Stress in Soils of India: Tackling it to Alleviate Hidden Hunger. In: Rakshit, A., Singh, S., Abhilash, P., Biswas, A. (eds) Soil Science: Fundamentals to Recent Advances. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0917-6_40

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