'Balanced, in-time use of fertilizer imperative to increase agri productivity'.

FAISALABAD -- Chief Scientist Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI) Dr. Muhammad Akhtar has said that balanced and in-time use of fertilizers especially potash is imperative to increase agriculture productivity.

Addressing an international seminar on 'Importance of Potash and its Better Use' at AARI here on Tuesday, he said that it is a great challenge for the scientists to develop such varieties which could give maximum production to cater to increasing food requirements of burgeoning population under harsh climatic conditions and rapid increase in weather temperature.

He said that when the farmers harvest crops one after another without any interval, it badly affects the fertility of land by decreasing level of organic matter in the soil. Therefore, the growers should use rotten cow dung and green manure along with potash and other fertilizers to overcome deficiency of organic matter in their lands.

He said that agri scientists are striving hard to develop new crop varieties. In this connection, AARI scientists introduced 98 varieties of various crops during the last two years which have extraordinary resistance against different diseases and pest attacks...