150 Australian Journal of Crop Science     2(3):150-157 (2008)  ISSN: 1835-2707 Assessment of different crop nutrient management practices for yield improvement 1 *Sajid Ali, 2 A. Riaz Khan, 2 Ghazal Mairaj, 3 M. Arif, 4 Mehwish Fida and 5 Saiqa Bibi 1* Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, 2 Department of Agricultural Chemistry, 3 Department of Agronomy, 4 Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences, 5 Department of Food Science and Technology, NWFP Agricultural University Peshawar, Pakistan 1 * Corresponding author Email: bioscientist122@yahoo.com Abstract Food security could only be attained with increasing crop productivity. One of the major crop productivity constraints is the unavailability of crop nutrients. Both macro and micro nutrient deficiencies have been reported in most of the soils, which could be provided through various nutrient management practices. Different nutrient application measures were studied for their impact on crop yield and yield-related parameters in a series of experiments, conducted at agricultural research farm, NWFP Agricultural University Peshawar, Pakistan from 2004 through 2007. FYM application was observed to improve crop growth and yield of different wheat cultivars. Nutrient seed priming resulted in better early growth of maize. At field level, nutrient seed priming improved performance of wheat. Similarly for maize crop, nutrient seed priming resulted in more number of cobs plot -1 , grains cob -1 , 1000- grain weight and biological yield of maize crop even at lower soil application. Soil application of P improved yield and yield components. Better results were obtained from combined use of priming and soil P application. Foliar application of macro and micro nutrients also produced better crop yield and yield components. Similarly, foliar application of micro nutrients (zinc and boron) improved yield over two years. Our results show that all of these crop nutrients management practices has a positive impact on crop performance and call for an integrated approach of crop nutrient management. Such integrated approach must be evaluated at farm level for their economic impact. Adoption of integrated crop nutrient management techniques could be more economical and environmental friendly to achieve higher yields and thus food security. Introduction Among several millennium goals, achievement of food security is one of the major one, achievement of which is mainly based on increasing crop productivity. However, crop productivity in developing world faces several constraints. One of the major crop productivity constraints in the third world is the unavailability of crop nutrients in appropriate amount and form to crops (Hussain et al. 2006). Plants require specific amount of certain nutrients in some specific form at appropriate times, for their growth and development. The roles of both macro and micronutrients are crucial in crop nutrition and thus important for achieving higher yields (Arif et al., 2006). However, most of our soils are deficient in these nutrients (Jahiruddin et al. 1995), and must be supplemented through proper crop nutrients management. Crop nutrients could be provided through different nutrients application methods, including FYM and fertilizer application to soil, nutrients seed priming and foliar application of nutrients. Each of these application methods has its