EXPLORING THE BEST NP RATIO FOR WHEAT IN PERSPECTIVE OF PRESENT FARMERS' BUDGET FOR FERTILIZER

Farming community has a limited budget for various inputs like fertilizers for crops. Farmers usually allocate more money to nitrogen fertilizers while spending less money on phosphorus. Field experiments were carried out at farmers' fields to explore the effect of various ratios of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer while keeping the farmers' budget constant. Fertilizer experiments were conducted on wheat in Punjab Pakistan during years 2015-16 to 2017-18 at different locations in Punjab. Five different ratios (4:1, 3:1, 2:1, 1.7:1) of N and P were used with treatments of 152-37-0, 137-46-0, 117-58-0, 108-64-0, 160-114-0. Recommended dose of 160-114-60 kg ha-1 of N-P2O5-K2O was also applied for additional information. At maturity, crop was harvested and data of wheat grain for each site were recorded. During the year 2015-16, 12 sites produced higher wheat yield with NP ratio of 1.7:1 (T4) out of 14 field sites. Similarly in 2016-17, out of 19, 18 experimental sites produced higher grain yield with T4 as economically best fertilizer combination. Similar results were obtained during 2017-18 with T4 and out of 17, 15 experimental sites produced comparatively higher grain yield. Recommended dose @ 160-114-60 kg ha-1 produced highest grain yield. However, among farmer budget treatments, T4-a combination of nitrogen@108 kg ha-1 and phosphorus@64 kg ha-1 gave higher wheat production. It is concluded that farmers can increase the yield of wheat just by balancing the fertilizer and increasing the phosphorus use in place of nitrogen. Keywords: nitrogen, phosphorus, budget, wheat, grain.