The Soil Fertility Research Institute (SFRI) deals with the subject pertaining Soil Sciences that describes the physical and chemical characteristics of soil as a whole, Economy of Pakistan depends on the development of agriculture whereas agriculture is dependent on productivity of soil. The improper fertilizer application by our farming community with continual cropping has resulted is decreased crop yield.
Moreover, government established this organization in 1962 etc.
Dream Come True
Soil Fertility Research Institute (SFRI) - Agriculture Department is making all-out efforts to increase agriculture productivity and maintenance of soil health through modern techniques and recent developments. This idea is somehow achieved by using recent IT innovations by the present Government of the Punjab and by making information public. It is imperative that through the use of GIS in Agriculture as a tool to produce soil fertility / crop suitability maps that are informative for progressive farmers, landowners, policy makers, planners, researchers and extension workers.
Technology at the Doorstep of Farmers
By means of this project - Digitized Profile of Land for Agriculture in the Punjab Province (DDPLA), accessibility to Web Based GIS application is arranged and a mechanism to create an automatic recommendation for controllable factors was also developed. The development of web portal for information sharing is very helpful for Agriculture and Farming community, researchers, extension workers, decision and policy makers.
Green Punjab
Punjab Province is food basket for Pakistan. Economic yields can only be achieved if crops are grown in the environment that is optimum for specific plants improving awareness level about given soil and environmental conditions that can be of great help to improve crop production. This idea can be more helpful in making our Punjab Evergreen.
Mission
- Assess fertilizer response in various agro-ecological zones / soil types in order to formulate economic fertilizer recommendations
- Indexation of plant nutrients in soil and plant tissue for monitoring their status
- Evaluate comparative agronomic efficiency of different commercial fertilizers
- Research on popularization of Integrated Plant Nutrition System (IPNS) for sustainable agriculture
- Find out appropriate time and method of fertilizer application in different cropping system
- Popularize the balanced fertilizer use to get economic yield. Advisory services to farming community for economical use of soil, water and fertilizer resources and reclamation of salt affected soils
- Monitoring quality of fertilizers, survey and test the suitability of ground water for irrigation purposes
- Provide analytical service to fertilizer / amendments manufacturers for quality of their products
Description
The practical problems are with identification of deficiency and dose of fertilizer application to harvest economical crops yields. For wise use of fertilizers, due consideration be given to nutrient supplying capacity of soil and quantity of nutrients required to get target yield. This information can be obtained by soil or plant tissue analysis. Soil tests are also gaining popularity among the farmers for seeking recommendations for the reclamation of saline/sodic soils for economic utilization of natural resources. Use of ground water and its use without any amendment will deteriorate the productive soil through secondary salinization.
Keeping in view the importance of soil and water analysis and balance use of fertilizers to enable the farming community to increase their per acre yield and bring more area under cultivation, Government established this organization. Since inception this department is extending services to farming community of the Punjab province for efficient use of their soil and water resources. This institute comprises two main wings i.e. Field Wing and Laboratory Wing.