Unit 1: Calcium nutrition

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Module V Groundnut Plant Nutrition
Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics
Lesson 3 Importance of secondary plant
nutrients
Unit 1 Calcium nutrition

• After successful completion of this Unit, you
  should be able to answer
• What is the role of calcium in groundnut
  nutrition?
• Why calcium application is important for
  groundnut crop?
• What is the source for calcium application to
  groundnut crop?
• At what stage of groundnut crop calcium is
  applied and why?
• What is the method of application of calcium to
  groundnut crop?
• What is the recommended rate of gypsum
  application to groundnut crop?
• Why calcium need to be applied every year to
  groundnut crop?

Course on Groundnut Production Practices
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Calcium plays an important role in lengthening
the roots and shoots and thereby improving the
growth and development in plants Calcium
requirement of groundnut plant is quite high and
it is more during the pod-filling stage. 90
of calcium uptake is during flowering and pod
formation stages.
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An important aspect of calcium nutrition in
groundnut is that the calcium taken up by the
plant from soil will remain in the leaf tissues,
and will not move from the leaves to the
developing pods where its requirement is
high. For this reason calcium should be
sufficiently available in the podding zone at peg
formation stage to pod maturity. Developing
pegs and pods can directly absorb soil calcium
similar to absorption by roots.
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To get good yields of quality groundnut pods,
adequate amount of calcium should be present in
the soil from early flowering of the crop
onwards. Gypsum which is calcium sulfate is the
cheapest source of calcium. Gypsum is a byproduct
from fertilizer factories. Gypsum is relatively
soluble and hence a readily available source of
calcium for the developing pods.
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Depending on the soil test, application of
250-500 kg/ha of gypsum is recommended. Well -
powdered gypsum should be applied when the crop
is in peak flowering stage i.e. 40 days after
sowing. Gypsum is applied by dusting all around
the plants followed by manual weeding which also
helps to incorporate the applied gypsum. As
there is little residual effect of gypsum in the
soil, it is necessary to repeat gypsum
application every season.
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Module V Groundnut Plant Nutrition
Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics
Lesson 3 Importance of secondary plant
nutrients
With this, the Unit 1 on Calcium Nutrition in
this Lesson concludes. Next, Unit 2 in this
Lesson is about magnesium nutrition in
groundnut. The last Unit in this Lesson deal
with the importance of sulfur in groundnut
nutrition. Select Unit 2 in Lesson 3 of Module
V from Course contents
Course on Groundnut Production Practices