Malaysian Journal of Sustainable Agriculture (MJSA)

The study was conducted to know the soil fertility status and maize productivity along with soil management practices being adopted in Lamahi municipality and Rapti rural municipality of Dang district to have a basis for the understanding of possible management options for better soil fertility and productivity. 333 soil samples from different maize farmers’ field were tested for soil fertility parameters during the program in which 60 soil samples were also collected from maize fields. Next, crop and soil management survey was carried out through a household interview in the sampled field. These data were used to identify the range of critical soil-test concentrations of nutrients and to assess the production status of maize and the soil management practices in farmers filed and evaluate the current fertilizer practices of farmers. The result showed that there was a dominance of neutral-alkaline soils with low organic matter & nitrogen levels with high P and medium K. Similarly, maize productivity of the district was found to be 3.3 ton per hectare. It is found that most farmers were adopting traditional crop management practices for maize cultivation with a high dependency on chemical fertilizers for fertilization.