Soybean herbage yield, nutritional value and profitability under integrated manures management

Area of Science:

• Agronomy
• Soil Science
• Sustainable Agriculture

Background:

• Organic manures are environmentally friendly alternatives to chemical fertilizers.
• Optimizing organic manure sources for crop production requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate forage soybean yield and quality under different nutrient management strategies.
• To determine the most effective combination of organic manures and inorganic fertilizers.

Main Methods:

• Multi-year field trial comparing inorganic fertilizers (IF), poultry litter (PL), bovine's farm yard slurry (BFYS), and sewage sludge (SS).
• Tested sole applications and seven binary combinations of these nutrient sources.
• Assessed fresh biomass, nutritional quality, sustainability index, net income, and benefit-cost ratio.

Main Results:

• The combination of bovine's farm yard slurry + inorganic fertilizers (BFYS + IF) significantly increased fresh biomass and nutritional quality.
• Integrated nutrient management, particularly BFYS + IF, enhanced sustainability and economic returns.
• Poultry litter and sewage sludge combined with inorganic fertilizers outperformed sole or binary organic applications.

Conclusions:

• BFYS + IF is a recommended integrated approach for optimizing soybean forage yield and quality.
• This integrated strategy reduces reliance on chemical fertilizers while improving economic viability.
• Sustainable forage production can be achieved through strategic integration of organic and inorganic nutrient sources.