Towards Integrated Nutrient Management

Keywords: Integrated nutrient management, INM, Environmental legislation, Arable fertilisers.

Agricultural, economical, environmental as well as legislative constraints affect planning of nutrient management in agricultural systems in the near future. The strategy of Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) proposes guidelines to meet these constraints. The guidelines affect aspects of nutrient management like choice of organic and mineral fertilisers, application rate, application time and application method. Implementation of INM guidelines on two selected arable farms had no significant effect on crop yield but improved crop quality and resulted in a considerable reduction of the input and surplus of N, P and K on the nutrient budgets. The target values for Nmin at harvest and nitrate-N in ground-water were exceeded regularly, probably because of drought and frost induced reduction of crop yield and N uptake by the crop. Although implementation of INM was hindered by unforeseen difficulties, INM seems a useful tool to improve nutrient management on arable farms.

P J Van Erp and O Oenema, Nederlands Meststoffen Instituut, Wageningen, Netherlands.

32 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, 52 references.