Phosphorus is a critical nutrient for plant growth, particularly for rooting and flowering, yet much of it remains unavailable to plants in the soil. In Nuwara Eliya, excessive use of synthetic phosphorus fertilizers has led to soil and groundwater pollution, facilitating eutrophication and resulting in high phosphorus concentrations in the surface soil. It is recommended that farmers assess soil phosphorus levels before applying fertilizers to mitigate health hazards.

1. Soil p levels in vegetable production systems in
Nuwara Eliya
Group members
2017T00102
2017T00168
2017T00165
2017T00140

2. Introduction
❑ Phosphorus is one of the major plant nutrients in the soil.
❑ It’s a constituent of plant cell, essential for cell division and development
of the growing tip of the plant. For this reason it is vital for seedlings and
young plant.
❑ Plant root take up nearly all P as either the primary or secondary
orthophosphate anion (H2PO4
-, HPO4
-2).
❑ Primary orthophosphate is the form that is dominant in acid soils and is
taken up about 10 times as reading as the secondary orthophosphate form.
❑ However, it is the fact that most of the P present in soil is immediately
unavailable to plant.

3. Importance of Phosphorus in vegetable crop
❑Phosphorus is the nutrient responsible for plant rooting.
❑This is main ingredient in bloom-booster fertilizer.
❑Phosphorus reduce nitrogen-the nutrient that support green growth and
potassium in favour of phosphorus to induce flowering.
❑ phosphorus is the nutrient responsible for fruiting .

4. Soil p levels in Nuwara Eliya
❑ In Sri Lankan condition, farmers usually use higher amount of synthetic
phosphorus fertilizers especially in nuwara eliya for intensive upcountry
vegetable cultivation.
❑ The excessive amount are responsible for soil and ground water pollution
and affect the vegetable production.
❑ High P concentration in water leads to Eutrophication in water.

5. • Long term continues applications of P fertilizers and other P sources are
cause P accumulation in surface soil in nuwara Eliya.
• The result show that total P in the surface soil ranged from 1108 to 4587
31 mg/kg with organic P & active P constitutions only about 20 & 50%
total P respectively.
• All the soil tested in have exceed the safe limit of 30 -40 ppm ( badulla,
bandarawela , nuwara Eliya and welimada )
• Therefore, Farmers have to be educated to test the available p in the soil
before application of p fertilizers & avoid possible health hazard in the
nuwaraliya area.