Plants require fertilizers for their proper development and better yield. Fertilizers are divided into macronutrients and micronutrients. Macronutrients are absorbed in larger quantities in the plant.
They include nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and sulfur (S). Micronutrients are absorbed directly into the plant tissue and they include boron (B), chlorine (Cl), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), and zinc (Zn). These macronutrients and micronutrients containing fertilizers are applied to plants by mixing them into soil or directly applied to the foliar of the plants.
Many fertilizers are applied through application in the soil, via direct spraying or through irrigation. For many years, agriculture specialists have found higher yields when plants were fertilized through foliar feeding techniques, or more simply, applying the spray directly to the leaves. Spraying at the beginning or end of the day is crucial to maximize the growth of the plants. Because of this the photosynthesis, growth and yield of plants is improved.
Due to excessive use of chemical fertilizers, fertility of the soil is decreasing, soil health is deteriorating and environmental pollution is increasing. The farm products manufactured using chemical fertilizers, pesticides, weedicides etc. are showing some bad effects on health of people. Diseases like cancer are increasing due to increase of chemical pesticides in the vegetables, fruits, grains etc. Hence, the awareness to go for organically produced vegetables, fruits and grains is increasing. Farmers are also reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and opting for Organic farming methods. It's well-known that there are plenty of benefits of using Organic fertilizers, as they don't leave any residue, they keep improving the fertility of soil and making the plants strong from inside.
There are three major essential nutrients required for the proper growth of the plants and these are Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium. The salient features of these nutrients are as follows:
Nitrogen is very important for Plant's Development. The use of nitrogen is well known to the growers. Nitrogen which is widely chosen for application in the form of urea is the most common source of the nitrogen used in agriculture as it gives quick green effect on plants by increasing chlorophyll content in plants. The other inorganic sources such as ammonium sulfate, ammonium phosphate, nitrate form of nitrogen such as ammonium nitrate are also used for supplying nitrogen to crops. However, nitrogen is either evaporated quickly or lost due to nitrification reaction. The effect of urea is quick but does not last long as urea is lost by mechanism stated above.
Farmers apply huge quantities of nitrogenous fertilizers and because of the problems mentioned above the actual effective use of nitrogen is less than 50% so in short more than 50% of applied urea fertilizer is wasted, thus, posing pollution and increasing burden of subsidy in Country's financial budget.
There are other Organic nitrogen sources available such as natural vegetable or animal, microbial origin protein based organic nitrogen. This organic nitrogen is very important because it's derived from peptides or amino acids which are the building blocks for any living thing. Peptides and amino acids are known as best natural chelating and nutrient transporters.
Phosphorous is very important for sturdiness of plants and its flowers. It is also important for increasing flowering and to prevent the flower shedding. The inorganic phosphorus sources for plants include super phosphate, diammonium phosphate (DAP), urea ammonium phosphate, ammonium phosphate, ammonium polyphosphate and the like. However, their availability to plants is very low.
Research has shown that the 75-95% of phosphorus fertilizer is tied up, or fixed, in the soil. The product prepared using this is a revolutionary technology that helps to solve the long-standing problem of poor phosphate availability and provides greater phosphate efficiencies, improved yield potential and increased profitability.
Potassium is also very important for sugar carbohydrate development in plants. Potassium is one of the important nutrient in protecting a crop against disease. It has the ability to make plant cells thicker, to strengthen the stalks and stems of plant and make it more difficult for certain diseases to invade the plant after a heavy rain or other stressful conditions. Potassium also plays vital role in photosynthesis.
Unfortunately, in the country like India where 75% of the population is dependent on agriculture and almost 300-400 million acres of arable land is available, manpower is available for farming but India is not self-sufficient in supplying three major nutrient fertilizers to the land under farming. Almost 75% of phosphate is imported from countries like China, USA, Morocco, Russia, Tunisia, Jordan and more than 95% of Potash is imported from Canada, Russia and Belarus. Indian Ministry of Agriculture has to import these fertilizers in huge quantities and supply farmers at subsidized rates. The subsidy burden is almost INR 68,000 Crore per year (USD 11 Billion/year) to Indian Government so it is very important to look for the fertilizers which has better efficiency, reduced wastage in soil, offer less pollution by avoiding fertilizer run off, offer better or equivalent effects without compromising on yield and save foreign exchange outgo for fertilizer import.
US Patent Publication No. 2012/0157317 discloses a concentrate in which the pH indicator is triarylmethane and the adjuvant is a carbohydrate (organic) acid for pH modification. US'317 provide composition in concentrated form which is diluted with water and apply to crops, soil or animals. The pH modifying agent used includes carbohydrate acid from glucoheptonic acid, gluconic acid, glucuronic acid, glucaric acid, mannonic acid, mannuronic acid, mannaric acid, galactonic acid, galactaric acid, galacturonic acid, guluronic acid, iduronic acid, ribonic acid, arabonic acid, xylonic acid, eruythronic acid, threonic vcid, tartaric acid and any composition thereof. US'317 also mentioned other acids such as acetic acid, orthophisphoric acid, citric acid, glutaric acid, glycolic acid, lactic acid, malonic acid, oxalic acid, phthalic acid, succinic acid, phosphorous acid, amino-tris(methylenephosphonic acids and etidronic acid.
US'317 discloses the use of carbohydrate acid for pH modification and triarylmethane dye for pH indication and mainly teaches that the product was used to treat the water for pH modification, however, it does not claim to possess or offer any fertilizing activity.
WO Publication No. 99/25189 discloses a concentrate for enhancing the activity of an agricultural chemical having a pH modifying group comprising,
a) an active ingredient selected from one or more members of the group comprising pH modifying agents and water conditioning agent and
b) pH indicator for coloring water, the pH indicator producing color change in water at a pH which the agricultural chemical has an acceptable agricultural activity;
the concentration of pH indicator in concentrate being sufficient that, when the agricultural chemical is added to spray water containing a predetermined amount of the concentrate, the pH indicator produces a visible color change in the spray water after addition of an agriculturally effective amount of the agricultural chemical.
WO'189 discloses the use of concentrate to add with agricultural chemicals for pH modification and pH indication and is mainly teaches that the product was used to treat the water for pH modification, however, it does not claim to possess or offer any fertilizing activity.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,728,648 relates to an improved fertilizing composition containing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, with the improvement being the addition of 1-methyl-4-(1-methylethenyl)cyclohexene (i.e. limonene) as an insecticide and fungicide.
An article titled, “Effects of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium nutrition on strawberry anthracnose” by M. H. Nam et. al., published in Plant Pathology (2006) 55, 246-249, determine the effects of a range of concentrations of four nutrients—nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium in fertilizer solutions on the severity of anthracnose on strawberry cv. Nyoho cultivated under a non-circulation hydroponics system, after inoculation with Colletotrichum gloeosporioides.
An article titled, “Effects of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium Fertilizers and of Organic Materials on the Composition of Washington Navel Orange Juice” by Winston W. Jones and E. R. Parker, published in American Society for Horticultural Science. The study determines the influence of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizers, and of manure and winter covercrops on the composition of the juice of the Washington Navel orange.
A thesis titled, “Effects Of Nitrogen Phosphorus and Potassium Fertilization on the Yield and Chemical Composition On Pole Beans” submitted to Oregon State College by Harry John Mack in June 1956, describes a study of the effects of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilization on the yield and chemical composition of pole bean plants grown under field conditions.
However, there are certain problems that are associated with the use of such type of fertilizers containing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
1] The existing fertilizing elements like Nitrogen, Phosphorous or Potassium do not offer complete efficiency when applied.
Nitrogen from urea is either evaporated quickly or lost due to nitrification reaction, which renders its efficacy to 40%. Phosphorous having tendency to form complex with soil cations such as sodium, calcium, aluminium, iron etc. which renders its efficiency to just 25%. Potassium also forms complexes in soil with clay minerals and silicate ions, which affects its efficacy to some extent.
Thus, there remains a need to increase the efficiency of these fertilizing nutrients by reducing the evaporation/loss in case of nitrogen and complexation with cations in case of Phosphorous and Potassium.
2] Fertilizers containing Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P) and Potassium (K) tend to form complexes with the salts in irrigation water or in soil thereby reducing their efficiency and hence more quantity is required to use for better yields. The cations present in hard water sourced from underground renders the efficiency of N—P—K and makes them less effective.
Hence, the stable chemical or organic biocomplexed fertilizer composition is required which overcome the ill effects of hard water salts or cations presents in soil.
3] Water which is the most suitable and cost effective medium for applying fertilizers is generally sourced from underground and is found to be hard and alkaline in most of the places all over the world. When fertilizers are applied on the soil, large quantity of water is required for dilution and the water used for their dilution is mostly hard water sourced from ground well, river etc. While diluting or solubilising the inorganic fertilizers into such water, they comes in contact with hard water and the hard water salts tend to hydrolyze or form complex with inorganic fertilizers and renders them less effective. Thus, causes reduction in the uptake of fertilizers.
The hard water tends to reduce the efficiency of fertilizers and applied chemicals, and also affects the surface tension. Therefore, it is required to treat the water so that the ill effects of hard water can be avoided.
4] Further the inorganic sources of fertilizer when foliar applied are not absorbed in plants completely because the inorganic nature of the nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium does not allow them to go inside the leaf surface and they have to form complexes with some organic molecules (Organic molecules acting as transporter and are produced during the photosynthesis using C, H, O). If these organic molecules are not produced by plant in sufficient quantities then the nutrient transportation and absorption is greatly affected. However, if the nutrient fertilizer is made available as organic complex then its availability is greatly enhanced.
Therefore it is required to offer solution which will take care of multiple issues as following:
Solution to offer N—P—K, nutrients, agrochemicals in highly assimilable form so their maximum utilization can be achieved
Solution which will also possess property to mitigate ill effects of hard water conditions and the hard alkaline water used for their dilution by correcting the water quality.
Solution which will give information to the grower about the correction in the pH of the solution used for spraying or irrigation consisting fertilizers, agrochemicals by imparting color change to solution at various pH value.
Solution reduces the losses of applied fertilizers by lowering volatilization losses or losses due to tie up with cations present in soil and water.
Solution which will offer better effects of applied nutrients, agrochemicals even at lower dosages by enhancing their effectiveness.
This is achieved in the present invention by using various compositions.
In order to achieve better yields Farmer has to use various products such as fertilizers, complexing agents, chelating agents, surfactants, stickers, pH buffers, pH meter/pH papers for improving efficiency of applied nutrients. Most of the farmers are not literate or do not have information of various products to be used for improving the efficiency of fertilizers. Hence, in order to overcome such problems there is a need to provide a better product which will offer multiple benefits in a single product.