Nitrogen and potassium application effects on productivity, profitability and nutrient use efficiency of irrigated wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).

The development of robust nutrient management strategies have played a crucial role in improving crop productivity, profitability and nutrient use efficiency. Therefore, the implementation of efficient nutrient management stratigies is important for food security and environmental safety. Amongst the essential plant nutrients, managing nitrogen (N) and potassium (K) in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) based production systems is citically important to maximize profitable production with minimal negative environmental impacts. We investigated the effects of different fertilizer-N (viz. 0–240 kg N ha^-1; N₀-N₂₄₀) and fertilizer-K (viz. 0–90 kg K ha^-1; K₀-K₉₀) application rates on wheat productivity, nutrient (N and K) use efficiency viz. partial factor productivity (PFP_N/K), agronomic efficiency (AE_N/K), physiological efficiency (PE_N/K), reciprocal internal use efficiency (RIUE_N/K), and profitability in terms of benefit-cost (B-C) ratio, gross returns above fertilizer cost (GRAFC) and the returns on investment (ROI) on fertilizer application. These results revealed that wheat productivity, plant growth and yield attributes, nutrients uptake and use efficiency increased significantly (p<0.05)with fertilizer-N application, although the interaction effect of N x K application was statistically non-significant (p<0.05). Fertilizer-N application at 120 kg N ha^-1 (N₁₂₀) increased the number of effective tillers (8.7%), grain yield (17.3%), straw yield (15.1%), total N uptake (25.1%) and total K uptake (16.1%) than the N₈₀. Fertilizer-N application significantly increased the SPAD reading by ~4.2–10.6% with fertilizer-N application (N₈₀-N₂₄₀), compared with N₀. The PFP_N and PFP_K increased significantly with fertilizer-N and K application in wheat. The AE_N varied between 12.3 and 22.2 kg kg^-1 with significantly higher value of 20.8 kg kg^-1 in N₁₂₀. Fertilizer-N application at higher rate (N₁₆₀) significantly decreased the AE_N by ~16.3% over N₁₂₀. The N₁₂₀treatment increased the AE_K by ~52.6% than N₈₀ treatment. Similarly the RIUE_N varied between 10.6 and 25.6 kg Mg^-1 grain yield, and increased significantly by ~80.2% with N₁₂₀ as compared to N₀ treatment. The RIUE_K varied between 109 and 15.1 kg Mg^-1 grain yield, and was significantly higher in N₁₂₀ treatment. The significant increase in mean gross returns (MGRs) by ~17.3% and mean net returns (MNRs) by ~24.1% increased the B-C ratio by ~15.1% with N₁₂₀ than the N₈₀ treatment. Fertilizer-N application in N₁₂₀ treatment increased the economic efficiency of wheat by ~24.1% and GRAFC by ~16.9%. Grain yield was significantly correlated with total N uptake (r = 0.932**, p<0.01), K uptake (r = 0.851**), SPAD value (r = 0.945**), green seeker reading (r = 0.956**), and the RIUE_N (r = 0.910**). The artificial neural networks (ANNs) showed highly satisfactory performance in training and simulation of testing data-set on wheat grain yield. The calculated mean absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and root mean square error (RMSE) for wheat were 0.0087, 0.834 and 0.052, respectively. The well trained ANNs model was capable of producing consistency for the training and testing correlation (R² = 0.994**, p<0.01) between the predicted and actual values of wheat grain yield, which implies that ANN model succeeded in wheat grain yield prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]