Contents: Preface. 1. Rational use of different on farm and off farm organic resources in India/A. Subba Rao and S. Srivastava. 2. Efficient manure application, availability in soil, crop utilization and response analysis of manure nutrients/A. Subba Rao and T.R. Rupa. 3. Chemical and biochemical quality assessment of compost prepared from organic wastes/A.B. Singh. 4. Effect of use of sewage water, MSW and city wastes on crop quality parameters/Ajay. 5. Sewage water utilization for production of medicinal and aromatic plants/Ajay. 6. Recent developments in the assessment of crop produce quality/K.B. Hebbar. 7. Online fertilizer recommendation system/K.N. Singh. 8. Nutrient mineralization characteristics of different organic manures/K. Sammi Reddy. 9. Issues in soil test crop response correlation based fertilizer recommendations: a self introspection/Y. Muralidharudu. 10. Contribution of on-farm and off-farm resources in integrated nutrient management prescriptions/Y. Muralidharudu. 11. Status and prospects of organic farming in India/P. Ramesh. 12. Micronutrients in soil - their role in plant growth and estimation by soil test methods/Sanjib Kumar Behera. 13. Nanotechnology in agriculture/Tapan Adhikari. 14. Potential traditional water harvesting systems for sustainable crop production in Madhya Pradesh/J. Somasundaram. 15. Efficient use of sugar industry wastes for sustainable crop production and soil fertility/R.H. Wanjari, A.K. Biswas and K.S. Reddy. 16. Soil testing as a tool for balanced nutrition for sustainable agriculture/Sanjay Srivastava. 17. Nutrient use in Indian agriculture and paradigm shift in fertilizer policy/Ranjit Kumar. Subject index.

Over exploitation and degradation of natural resources is one of the major weaknesses that the present agriculture faces. The soil resource is also under increasing stress as there is a big gap (deficit of about 10 million tonnes NPK nutrients) between annual drain of nutrients from the soil due to crop removals and the nutrient inputs from the external sources.

Integrated nutrient management (INM) has been recognized as the economically viable and environmentally benign technology to enhance soil productivity through the balanced use of mineral fertilizers combined with organic sources of plant nutrients. One of the major constraints of INM is the quantity and quality of organic manures available with the farmers. Even though significant quantities of organic manures are available with the farmers, their quality is poor. Lot of research has been done in ICAR Institutes as well as SAUs to enhance the quality of manures by efficient composting techniques, besides developing efficient techniques for nutrient enrichment in different organic manures including municipal solid wastes for efficient recycling of organic wastes for sustainable agriculture.

This book contains very useful information on various on-farm and off-farm organic wastes being used for soil fertility management in INM and organic farming, nutrient enriched composts preparation, use of vermicomposting techniques for bio-degradation of organic wastes, conservation agriculture, and the effect of organic wastes on crop and soils quality, soil carbon dynamics. This publication will be quiet useful to researchers, students, extension persons, policy makers and all those engaged in developing efficient nutrient management strategies for sustainable agriculture. (jacket)