Responds of vegetable crops to foliar feeding of water soluble fertilizer

Vegetables are important in the human diet as protective food. India is a leading vegetable producing country, in the world. However, the current per capita consumption of vegetable in our country is only 135g as against 300g of vegetables required per day per adult for maintaining good health. It is estimated that by 2020, the countries vegetable demand would be 135 million tonnes. To achieve this target, there is a need to integrate the various technologies right from production to post-harvest management. Exploiting of vigour for increased production of vegetables is becoming a popular method. As in other field crops, vegetable are generally more responsive to fertilizer application and thus produce more biomass through higher photosynthetic activity especially during critical stage of growth. The supply of adequate amount of nutrients is a prerequisite for exploiting the genetic potential of any vegetables. The major nutrients viz., N, P and K are supplied to the crop through soil application. The efficiency of fertilizers applied in soil is low due to various losses and fixation in soil. Foliar application of nutrients eliminates the problems like fixation and immobilization. Hence, foliar nutrition is recognized as an important method of fertilization in modern agriculture. Foliar nutrients usually penetrate the cuticle (or) the stomata of the leaf and enter into the cell. Thus foliar application provides ample scope for utilization of nutrients more efficiently and for correcting the deficiencies rapidly and also helping in the reduction of loss of nutrients.