Improving and maintaining soil fertility for enhancing and sustaining crop production is of world
wide importance. Many factors influence the complex chemical, physical and biological processes
which govern soil fertility and productivity. Changes in fertility caused by imbalance fertilizer
use, acidification, alkalinity, salinity and declining soil organic matter
may take several years to appear. These properties can in turn be influenced by external factors such
as atmospheric pollution, global climatic changes or land use management practices. Long term
experiments provide the best possible means of studying yield sustainability along with changes in
soil properties and in identifying emerging trends in nutrient imbalances and deficiencies so as to
formulate future studies for maintaining sustainable crop productivity and soil fertility.
Information System on Long Term Fertilizer Experiments is an endeavor in developing a centralized
repository of information generated by long-term experiments conducted /in progress under NRM,
Crop Sciences and Horticulture Divisions of ICAR.
It can provide a common platform for planners and
researchers in understanding agro-ecosystem wise the complex interactions involving soil, plants,
climate and management practices and their effect on crop productivity and soil fertility. It can
also provide an interface for online data entry, updation and information retrieval relating to
long term experiments for the respective users.