Indian Journal of Fertilisers, December 2014 72 Nutrient Management in Fruit Crops Issues and Strategies A. K. Srivastava National Research Centre for Citrus, Nagpur 440 033, Maharashtra aksrivas2007@gmail.com and S.K. Malhotra Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, New Delhi - 110 011 malhotraskraj@yahoo.com Fruits crops by the virtue of their nutritional qualities have already emerged as a major alternative, cutting short the menacing load on the consumption of traditional monotonous cereal/tuber crop-based diet. Nutrient management based production system of perennial fruit crops is inherently complex to understand due to large variation in nutrient use efficiency (NUE). Current state of diagnosis of nutrient constraints in current season standing crop has minimum efficacy. Therefore, development of production- linked nutrient norms using crop specific index plant parts, needs a thorough revisit at orchard level using conventional basin irrigation versus fertigation. Application of hyperspectral analysis as proximal sensing of nutrient stress has started imparting precision to nutrient constraint diagnosis. On the other hand, the biggest constraint in making soil test ratings more purposeful is the non-redressal of spatial variation in soil fertility in form of soil fertility analogues vis-a-vis fruit crops. Conjoint use of geoinformatics and nutrient experts as decision support tool(s) accommodating site specific nutrient management strategy, newer concept of fertigation such as open field hydroponics and variable rate application as possible improvements in NUE collectively using logical relationship between canopy volume and nutrient requirement, exploiting further the nutrient– harmone and nutrient-microbe (in consortium mode) synergies have yielded definite edge over conventional methods of nutrient management options in fruit crops. Indian J. Fert., Vol. 10 (12), pp.72-88 (19 pages) INTRODUCTION Perennial fruit crops represent hardly 1% of the global agricultural land area, but Mediterranean region covers maximum of 11% area, which are of great economic importance in world trade and tariff (34). On the other hand, Indian fruit industry occupies 6.82 million ha with a total production of 80.96 million tons (48). Approximately 1.7 million (2.8%) of deaths worldwide are attributable to micronutrient deficiency induced through lesser consumption of fruits and vegetables and regarded as top 10 selected risk factors for global mortality (185). In the 21 st century, nutrient efficient plants will play a major role in increasing crop yields compared to the 20 th century, mainly due to limited land and water resources available for crop production, higher cost of inorganic fertiliser inputs, declining trends in crop yields globally, and increasing environmental concerns. Furthermore, at least 60% of the world’s arable lands have mineral deficiencies or elemental toxicity problems, and on such soils fertilisers and lime amendments are essential for achieving improved crop yields (94). In the light of climate change related issues, perennial fruit trees play an important role in carbon cycle of terrestrial ecosystems and sequestering atmospheric CO 2 (71, 41). Net C sink and C storage in biomass of apple orchard ranged from 19 to 32 Tg C, respectively, and from 230 to 475 Tg C in 20 years period, amounting to 4.5% of total net C sink in the terrestrial ecosystems in China(189). In an estimate, it has been obsersved that an acre of apple orchard fixed about 20 tonnes of CO 2 from the air each season, and provided over 15 tonnes of O 2 , equivalent to over 5 billion BTU’s of cooling power (67). While other studies showed that citrus trees carbon sequestration in biomass ranged from 23.9 tonnes CO 2 /ha for young trees to 109 tonnes CO 2 /ha for mature trees (84). Fruit crops by the virtue of their perennial nature of woody framework (Nutrients locked therein), extended physiological stages of growth, differential root distribution pattern (root volume distribution), growth stages from the point of view of nutrient requirement and preferential requirement of some nutrients by specific fruit crop, collectively make them nutritionally more efficient than the annual crops (159, 111). There will be an increasing importance of nutrient efficient cultivars that are higher producers. Nutrient efficient plants are defined as those plants, which produce higher yields per unit of nutrient, applied or absorbed than other plants (standards) under similar agroecological conditions. Horticultural crops occupy 10% of cultivated area. Share of fertiliser use in horticulture has risen from 2% in 1990s to 8% in 2012-13 (Average application rate: 159 kg/ha with N:P:K use ratio 1.6:0.9:1.0), with banana and grapes being two most heavily fertilised fruit crops (19). During the last three decades, much research has been conducted to identify and/or