Soil Nutrients Status and Cropping System in Plastic House Condition of Chandragiri Municipality, Kathmandu- Nisha PANTHA and Shova

Abstract

Soil nutrients are essential for plant growth, crop production, and sustainable agricultural development. In recent years plastic house is going popular around peri-urban areas of  Nepal, including Chandragiri municipality of Kathmandu district. The research report  covered the experience, learning and contribution on nutrient status and cropping system  of plastic house of Chandragiri municipality of Kathmandu district. The main goal of the  research was to access the nutrient status as well as other farm activities of the farmers to  maintain soil fertility and enhance the crop yield for the sustainable agriculture. The  research involved different activities like survey, interview and soil sampling. Total 50  plastic houses were visited randomly to achieve the goal and 20 samples out of 50 samples  were randomly selected for the laboratory analysis to find out the status of nitrogen (N),  phosphorus (P), potassium (P), Zinc (Zn) and Boron (B). The data collected from the  interview related to the farm activities involved all 50 farms. The data was analyzed with  the help of Microsoft excel and SPSS (version 25). The observed data revealed a range of  soil nutrient concentrations, with varying levels of consistency across different variables.  Nitrogen showed relatively stable concentrations with low variability. Available  Phosphorus and Potassium showed wider fluctuations. Zinc also showed moderate  variability. Boron contained the highest variability among the variables, reflecting  significant inconsistency in its concentration levels across the samples. According to the  survey data, the highly cultivated crop was found to be tomato and its average production  was 53.3T/ha which concluded that plastic house farming in Chandragiri has high potential  to produce all kind of the vegetable crops and improve their livelihoods if their obstacles  such as limited investment, small landholding, lack of subsidies and market facilities are  addressed.