~ 1247 ~ The Pharma Innovation Journal 2021; 10(8): 1247-1254 ISSN (E): 2277- 7695 ISSN (P): 2349-8242 NAAS Rating: 5.23 TPI 2021; 10(8): 1247-1254 © 2021 TPI www.thepharmajournal.com Received: 02-05-2021 Accepted: 12-06-2021 D Vasundhara Department of Agronomy, School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India Vandna Chhabra Assistant Professor, Department of Agronomy, School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India Corresponding Author: Vandna Chhabra Assistant Professor, Department of Agronomy, School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India Foliar nutrition in cereals: A review D Vasundhara and Vandna Chhabra Abstract Cultivation of cereals done in large scale which leads to depletion of the nutrients from soil. Application of nutrients to the soil would not be always an efficient way solely as this method does not deliver the nutrients efficiently from soil to the plants due to impact of many physicochemical attributes of soil like organic matter levels, pH of the soil, soil compaction, soil temperature, texture, poor aeration and nutrient deficiencies etc. Lower nutrient use efficiency, higher input costs, poor quality produce and decline in the yields triggers global food shortages. The solution to surmount these issues would be the supplementary foliar nutrition. Though soil fertilization methods are very common, foliar nutrition methods are more effective as well as economical under certain circumstances. Foliar fertilization is more crucial as it enables quick and easy penetration and absorption of nutrients into the plants. Foliar nutrition mainly used for supplementing the nutrient doses. Supplementary foliar nutrition during the crop growth triggers mineral levels in plants and enhances the crop yields. Keeping all these facts in view, significance of foliar nutrition, impacts of foliar nutrition of macronutrients and micronutrients on cereal crops, appropriate source and timings as well as advantages and disadvantages of foliar nutrition were discussed in this paper. Keywords: Foliar nutrition, cereals, nutrient use efficiency, yield Introduction With the increase in world population, there is decline in productivity and the crop’s quality because of deficiency of multi nutrients especially secondary nutrients and micro nutrients are two significant challenges triggering nutritional and food insecurity (Reena et al., 2018) [49] . Agricultural production would have to be raised by 70% for solving food related problems for increasing population from 7 to 9.2 billion by 2050. Worldwide, above 840 million people have no enough food, 3 billion are suffering by multi nutrient deficiencies. About 80% of crop production’s future growth would be from limited cultivable lands by advancements in yields (FAO, 2015) [20] . In developing countries, multi nutrient deficiency for food crops as well as shortage of food is the 5 th significant reason for death and diseases in humans (World Health Report, 2002) [62] . Research investigations point out that fertilizer is accountable for about half of all the crop production. As a result, fertilizer would play significant role to meet challenges of nutrients and food security. Functions of nutrients applied by fertilizers are irrefutable in crop production because of their crucial roles in the plant metabolism (Marschner, 2012) [37] . Both macro nutrients and micro nutrients are crucial for the physiology, growth, development of plants and eventually crucial for improving quality, productivity of field crops (Reena et al., 2018) [49] . Plants utilizes various inorganic nutrients as well as O2, CO2, water for their growth and development. Many of these nutrients exists inherently in the soil and may depleted during various environmental conditions. Hence, soil fertilization which is the common practice is essential but this practice has various limitations regarding bioavailability of nutrients for crops. Soluble nutrients like nitrogen are prone to leaching losses whereas the availability of phosphorous, potassium and many micronutrients in soil solutions is low as they are fixed as insoluble forms on soil complex (EL-Ramady, 2014) [17] . Though soil application method is common, it does not effectively deliver nutrients to plants from soil. Present status of NUE is low in macronutrients like Nitrogen (NUE is 30 to 50%), Phosphorous (NUE is 15 to 20%), Sulphur (NUE is 8 to 12%), whereas in micronutrients NUE is less than 2% because of deterioration of physical, biological, chemical health of soil as well as the situations which limits growth of roots in the soil for nutrient uptake (Vision, 2013) [56] . Nutrient deficiency in soils and inefficient fertilizer application methods results in food shortage because of increased input cost and decreased yield and quality of crops (Reena et al., 2018) [49] .