78
S. Dhiman et al.
4.1 Introduction
Today’s challenge in modern agriculture is to attain high agrobiological sustainability
in terms of crop productivity and soil health. Although during green revolution, the
exhibited use of synthetic fertilizers accomplished crop’s high yield but at the same
time also led to adverse effects such as degradation and acidification of soil, mismanaged ecology, deterioration of soil fertility, and decrease in the yield of the crop (Ju
et al. 2009). The major goal of nutrient management is to enhance agronomic crop
productivity to meet the food demands of the ever-increasing population. The chemical fertilizers disturb the soil physiochemical properties viz., soil texture, porosity,
water holding capacity, and beneficial soil microbial flora. The usage of inorganic
fertilizers has drastically dropped due to the energy crisis, which has immensely
affected most of the developing countries (Gulshan et al. 2013). A low-input agricultural system which relies on the input of organic materials holds great promise not
only to diminish the use of synthetic fertilizer but also to recover crop productivity
and ensure ecosystem sustainability against nutrient mining and degradation of soil
and water resources (Tilman et al. 2002; Kravchenko et al. 2017). Soil is a sink of
plant nutrients that remain in both soluble and insoluble forms. Plants can easily take
up the former but difficult to get assessed with insoluble forms which are transformed
into a soluble form by various mechanisms (Maathuis and Diatloff 2013).
A large group of diverse microbiota inhabiting in the soil transform insoluble
minerals into accessible form for their uptake by plants. Microbial activity is essential
for the release of nutrients from dung without such release the available plant nutrient
supply would soon be hampered and the soil would become infertile (Jin et al. 2016).
Microbes inhabiting in dung complete the cycle by returning into the soil those nutrients the plants’ uptake from it (Chen et al. 2015). An active, thriving microbial population is a good bio-indicator of fertile soil. The shortage of fuelwood is a major problem
hence, forces the rural people to use the dung for their fuel purpose, which affects the
productivity status of cultivated land. In India tons of the livestock dung produced
annually, it remains unutilized or is not being fully utilized results in a loss of buffalo
dung 12.20 kg dung in a day and cow dung 11.6 kg animal/day and goat dung 0.70 kg
animal in a day (Chauhan and Singh 2012). Further, livestock waste acted as the chief
source of noxious gases (greenhouse gas), pollution, pathogens, and odor having
communal health and environmental pollution (Martinez et al. 2009) which adversely
affect air quality especially in rural areas dung acts as cooking fuel coupled with
poor ventilation (https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/pollution-due-to-burningof-cow-dung-wood-as-fuel-killed-1-24-lakh-people-in-one-year-332719.html).
The share of the Indian population relies on traditional biomass for cooking stands
at 72%. Bekele et al. (2013), observed 943 metric tonnes of, dung used by households annually. As a result, N, P, K, Ca, Mg, and Fe nutrients are lost per year,
This practice hurts the nutrient balance of the soil and consequently affects agricultural productivity. Investigators found that while the dung burnt in the kitchen
contains as much as 25% of the arsenic in fumes (indoor) absorbed by the respiratory tract of people thus leads to diseases such as persistent cough and chronic
S. Dhiman et al.
4.1 Introduction
Today’s challenge in modern agriculture is to attain high agrobiological sustainability
in terms of crop productivity and soil health. Although during green revolution, the
exhibited use of synthetic fertilizers accomplished crop’s high yield but at the same
time also led to adverse effects such as degradation and acidification of soil, mismanaged ecology, deterioration of soil fertility, and decrease in the yield of the crop (Ju
et al. 2009). The major goal of nutrient management is to enhance agronomic crop
productivity to meet the food demands of the ever-increasing population. The chemical fertilizers disturb the soil physiochemical properties viz., soil texture, porosity,
water holding capacity, and beneficial soil microbial flora. The usage of inorganic
fertilizers has drastically dropped due to the energy crisis, which has immensely
affected most of the developing countries (Gulshan et al. 2013). A low-input agricultural system which relies on the input of organic materials holds great promise not
only to diminish the use of synthetic fertilizer but also to recover crop productivity
and ensure ecosystem sustainability against nutrient mining and degradation of soil
and water resources (Tilman et al. 2002; Kravchenko et al. 2017). Soil is a sink of
plant nutrients that remain in both soluble and insoluble forms. Plants can easily take
up the former but difficult to get assessed with insoluble forms which are transformed
into a soluble form by various mechanisms (Maathuis and Diatloff 2013).
A large group of diverse microbiota inhabiting in the soil transform insoluble
minerals into accessible form for their uptake by plants. Microbial activity is essential
for the release of nutrients from dung without such release the available plant nutrient
supply would soon be hampered and the soil would become infertile (Jin et al. 2016).
Microbes inhabiting in dung complete the cycle by returning into the soil those nutrients the plants’ uptake from it (Chen et al. 2015). An active, thriving microbial population is a good bio-indicator of fertile soil. The shortage of fuelwood is a major problem
hence, forces the rural people to use the dung for their fuel purpose, which affects the
productivity status of cultivated land. In India tons of the livestock dung produced
annually, it remains unutilized or is not being fully utilized results in a loss of buffalo
dung 12.20 kg dung in a day and cow dung 11.6 kg animal/day and goat dung 0.70 kg
animal in a day (Chauhan and Singh 2012). Further, livestock waste acted as the chief
source of noxious gases (greenhouse gas), pollution, pathogens, and odor having
communal health and environmental pollution (Martinez et al. 2009) which adversely
affect air quality especially in rural areas dung acts as cooking fuel coupled with
poor ventilation (https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/pollution-due-to-burningof-cow-dung-wood-as-fuel-killed-1-24-lakh-people-in-one-year-332719.html).
The share of the Indian population relies on traditional biomass for cooking stands
at 72%. Bekele et al. (2013), observed 943 metric tonnes of, dung used by households annually. As a result, N, P, K, Ca, Mg, and Fe nutrients are lost per year,
This practice hurts the nutrient balance of the soil and consequently affects agricultural productivity. Investigators found that while the dung burnt in the kitchen
contains as much as 25% of the arsenic in fumes (indoor) absorbed by the respiratory tract of people thus leads to diseases such as persistent cough and chronic