~ 1400 ~ Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry 2019; 8(5): 1400-1403 E-ISSN: 2278-4136 P-ISSN: 2349-8234 JPP 2019; 8(5): 1400-1403 Received: 24-07-2019 Accepted: 25-08-2019 Purbasha P Padhi Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, College of Agriculture, IGKV, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India Ambika Prasad Mishra Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, College of Agriculture, OUAT, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India Corresponding Author: Purbasha P Padhi Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, College of Agriculture, IGKV, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India The role of molybdenum in crop production Purbasha P Padhi and Ambika Prasad Mishra Abstract Plants favour to micronutrients to maintain physiological balance in plants to maintain growth and development of the plants. Molybdenum (Mo) is essential micronutrients of the plants have a crucial role in growth and yield of the plants. Modern intensive agriculture gradually gains higher interest and importance of micronutrients to the researchers due to the diverse functional activities on plants. Documentation on the function of Molybdenum (Mo) on the growth and production of the crops were not accounted considerably. This mini-review point several improvements made in the communication of Mo in growth and development of crops. Keywords: Role, molybdenum, crop production Introduction Molybdenum is an important plant micronutrient. Plants pick up molybdenum (as molybdate) from the soil and only small amounts (0.1 to 1.0 ppm) are necessary to meet their dietary requirements. It is essential for the production of two major enzymes in plants – nitrogenase and nitrate reductase – which enable nitrogen to be obtained, or ‘fixed’, from air or soil. Nitrogen is needed for compounds such as amino acids, proteins and chlorophyll. Plants suffer from poor growth without it, leaves may become pale and deformed, buds and flowers may not develop properly and fruit setting can be restricted. Acidic soils prevent the uptake of molybdate even if there are sufficient quantities in the soil. In these instances, lime can be added to the soil to reduce acidity, helping to increase the uptake of molybdate. Soils in some regions of the world are naturally low in molybdenum. This can also occur in peat soils and in highly weathered soils with low levels of nutrients. Since the importance of molybdenum in tomato crops was first recognized in 1939, deficiency symptoms have been identified in a number of crops. The element is critical for the nutrition of legumes, cereal, lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower and citrus fruit. An international study involving field trials in 15 countries found that molybdenum deficiency was often only revealed by yield effects and without obvious symptoms of stress to the plant, yet was the most widespread deficiency after zinc and boron (Sillanpää 1990) [10] . Introduction of high-yielding varieties and higher use of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K), however, increased crop production several fold higher after the green revolution but this has led to micronutrient deficiency in most of the Indian soils (Singh 2001; Sahrawat et al. 2010) [11, 8] . Copper and Mo are likely to become critical in the future for sustaining high productivity in certain areas of India (Singh 2004) [12] . Indian soils are low in total Mo content, i.e., traces to 12 mgkg _1 (Sakal 2001), and about 11% of soils in India are deficient in available Mo (Singh 2001) [11] . Samples of wheat grown with and without molybdenum deficiency