Effect of micronutrients on oil seed crops

The word micronutrients represent some essential nutrients that are required in very small quantities for the growth of plants and micro-organisms. There are 17 essential elements and 8 elements are considered as micronutrients they are Iron (Fe), Manganese (Mn), Copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn), Boron (B), Molybdenum (Mo), Nickel (Ni) and Chlorine (Cl). Out of these micronutrients Iron (Fe), Manganese (Mn), Copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn), behave like cations and boron (B), Molybdenum (Mo), Chlorine (Cl) behave as anion. Micronutrients play a significant role in plant growth and metabolic processes associated with photosynthesis, chlorophyll formation, cell wall development and respiration, water absorption, xylem permeability, resistance to plant diseases and enzyme activities. They are involved in the synthesis of primary and secondary metabolites, and nitrogen fixation and reduction. Accordingly, Zn, Fe, Mn and Cu are involved in many processes controlling plant growth and their content in grains and leaves determine the quality of food consumed by humans and animals. Micronutrient deficiencies in plants lead to reduced yields and in severe cases to plant death. Among the micronutrients, Zn deficiency is the most detrimental to crop yield especially in calcareous soils.Brajkishor Rajput et al.,(2015) reported that enhanced removal of micronutrients as a result of high yielding varieties, intensive cropping with high analysis NPK fertilizers, limited use of organic manures and less recycling of crop residues led to the depletion of secondary and micronutrient from the soil reserves. The reduction in the yield is generally accounted to deficiency of secondary and micronutrients. The micronutrients deficiencies which are now wide spread. Under all India coordinated research project on micronutrient more than 2.5 lakh soil samples were analyzed from 20 states of the country and it has found that the 49, 33, 13 and 7 per cent of the samples were deficient in zinc (Zn), boron (B), iron (Fe), and molybdenum (Mo), respectively. India is the largest contributor to the global Castor production (79.6 per cent) and also contributes substantially to the production of Sesame (31.2 per cent) and Groundnut (25.1 per cent). It is second largest producer of Groundnut and Rapeseed - Mustard (next to China). Thus, as much of 23 million hectares area under cultivation of nine annual oilseeds is from India alone