Written
by Shaiful Bakhtiar Hashim, Norhidayatul Hikmee Mahzan, Dr Sukreen Hana Herman,
Dr Zurita Zulkifli.
Agriculture
is an important sector in Malaysia. For many years, this sector has been the
backbone of Malaysian economy by producing agricultural products for domestic
consumption, as the earner of foreign exchange. Agriculture also contributes to
the national Gross Domestic Products (GDP). It provides major employment for
the people, especially from the rural areas.
Fertilizer is a component applied to the soil or
plant in order to add more plant nutrients essential for growth of the plant. The
good productivity of crops is directly dependent on soil fertility. Basically, Nitrogen
(N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) are the macronutrients present in all
fertilizers and represent the most important nutrients in agriculture. N, P and
K elements in fertilizer is a complex comprised primarily of the [i]three
primary nutrients which is required for healthy plant growth.
These
three elements nutrients promote the growth of the plant in different ways
which N promotes the growth of leaves and vegetation, P promotes root and
growth and K promotes flowering, fruiting and keeps regulation of nutrient and
water in plant cell. To improve the quality and quantity of crops and to get a
good crop, one of the important things that the land or soil has is an adequate
fertilizer and also contain sufficient nutrients.
Soils
that lack of these three nutrients, either naturally or because of cultivation
will affect the plant growth. In cases where soils are lacking, nutrients must
be put back into the soil in order to create the ideal environment for optimal
plant growth. Each of the primary nutrients is essential in plant nutrition,
serving a critical role in the growth, development, and reproduction of the
plant.
In
agricultural technology, a variety of tools have been created to help
farmers make their agricultural activities and get a good crop. Previous
researchers have developed detection of N, P and K devices in soil from various
methods, including optical, acoustic, electrical and electromagnetic,
mechanical and electrochemical [1-3].
References
[1] M. Y. Kulkarni, K. K. Warhade, and S. Bahekar,
“Primary Nutrients Determination in the Soil Using UV Spectroscopy,” Int. J.
Emerg. Eng. Res. Technol., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 198–204, 2014.
[2]
M.
Joly, L. Mazenq, M. Marlet, P. Temple-Boyer, C. Durieu, and J. Launay,
“All-solid-state multimodal probe based on ISFET electrochemical microsensors
for in-situ soil nutrients monitoring in agriculture,” TRANSDUCERS 2017 -
19th Int. Conf. Solid-State Sensors, Actuators Microsystems, vol. 1, no.
10, pp. 222–225, 2017.
[3]
M.
A. Ali, K. Mondal, Y. Wang, N. K. Mahal, M. J. Castellano, and L. Dong,
“Microfluidic detection of soil nitrate ions using novel electrochemical foam
electrode,” Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Micro Electro Mech. Syst., pp. 482–485, 2017.
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