Punjab Government on Tuesday imposed ban on the sale of composite micro-nutrients consisting magnesium, zinc and iron.The decision to this effect was taken by State Agriculture Minister Tota Singh, while presiding over a meeting with Additional Chief Secretary, experts and scientists of Punjab University ludhiana, Agriculture director and other senior officers of the agriculture department.Minister directed the Sate Agriculture Director to ensure compliance of the orders immediately and issued instructions to all the agriculture officers to guide farmers for proper soil test and to ascertain as to which micro-nutrient is required to be used so that unnecessary use of all micro- nutrients could be avoided to save cost of production.
Minister also revealed that some sample tested for micro-nutrient were not up to the specifications.During the meeting, PAU ludhiana's Department of Soil Sciences head Dr Harmit Singh Thind said that this micro-nutrient is not required in all crops and all kinds of soil. "The different nutrients are required for different types of soil and different crops. As such, mixture of all these nutrients would not be useful where there is no deficiency of particular nutrient," he pointed.