In South Asia, 90 percent of smallholder farmers do not have access to soil testing. Blanket fertilizer recommendations are made over large regions, an approach that discounts all the different site and year-specific factors that govern economically optimal fertilizer usage. Existing approaches lead to inefficient use of nutrients and in case lower yield and profitability.

The International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) and CIMMYT jointly developed the Nutrient Expert® decision support tools under the umbrella of the Cereal System Initiative in South Asia (CSISA) and later CRPs MAIZE, WHEAT, and CCAFS, to provide location-specific fertilizer recommendations for farmers growing maize and wheat and to help Indian farmers achieve higher yields and profits.

These easy-to-use, interactive, computer-based tools capture spatial and temporal variability to provide precise nutrient recommendations to smallholder farmers in the wheat and maize systems of India. In February 2014, the tool received the award for Best Innovation at the Bihar Innovation Forum II, which recognizes innovations to improve rural livelihoods in India. Nutrient Expert® is the product of close collaboration with key partners such as national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES), seed and fertilizer industries, non-governmental organizations, farmers’ and women’s self-help groups in India. “The advantage of developing the Nutrient Expert® in a participatory mode was that the partners were on-board from day one and ultimately ‘owned’ the innovation,” said Kaushik Majumdar, Director of IPNI South Asia. Read the full article here (Source: CRP Maize)