Scientific Reports of the Imperial Institute of Agricultural Research Pusa (Including the Reports of the Imperial Dairy Expert Physiological Chemist and Sugarcane Expert) 1932-33

S.) I. RESEARCH AND PROGRAMME OF WORK SOIL FERTILITY Of the principal plant-food materials in which the soils of India are deficient by far the most important is nitrogen and the manurial problem is in the main one of nitrogen deficiency. [...] Depending as India does almost exclusively on the recuperative effects of natural processes in the soil to restore the combined nitrogen annually removed in the crops studies of the nitrogen balance sheet the factors influencing nitrogen fixation and practical measures such as the use of leguminous crops and green manures are of great interest and importance. [...] As in previous years the figures for total nitrogen remaining in the soil at the end of two years were less than at the beginning of the experiment in the rabi series but in the 1.harif series they were higher. [...] The spread of pure line seeds by the Agricultural Departments places a uniform product in the hands of the cultivtor and the maintenance of purity in the crop depends on the.extent to which it is in the power of the ryot to carry out harvesing and sowing with some approach to modern methods. [...] The maintenance of the standard of improvement which die original introduction offered is of vital importance and a regular system for rmaintaining the purity of the seed supply of the established Pusa wheats has been formulated in the Botanical Section.