Smart Approaches to Measure Soil Fertility for Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

India is basically agriculture driven country and our GDP is principally directed by the yield of Rabi and Kharif crops. Most of the farmers of our country practices traditional way of agriculture. Since the amount of soil nutrients regulates the growth and quality of the crop, a systematic and quantitative analysis of soil nutrients is essential for good and adequate agricultural produce. Many small and large-scale farmers of the country India were not aware about the soil fertility nutrients and hence are unable to make use of their farming land efficiently for enhanced crop yield. The motive of the present work is to emphasize the significance of soil vitamins and the sensor based smart way of nutrient evaluation practices for measuring each essential nutrients i. e., Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium of Agri land. It was understood from the literature that, insufficient levels of essential elements (N, P, K) in farming lands can cause major issues connected with crop growth, productivity, and crop failure. To enlighten farmers and the readers with the smart farming practices, present study submitted a cumulative review on soil nutrient analysis methods with special emphasis on sensors based smart methods to measure the quantities of soil essential elements such as N, P, K. It has been concluded that potentiometric based electrochemical sensors are beneficial for soil testing and were found to be advantageous to farmers in keeping a constant check on their soil health, which intern enable the farmers to grow healthier crops and to maintain the surrounding soil biodiversity.