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families. In general, soils are very low to low in available nitrogen with the exception of hill soils
and part of deltaic alluvium. The P and K status ranges between medium and high. Regarding,
secondary and micronutrients, recent assessment of 42,392soil samples collected at village level
from 30 districts of Tamil Nadu for various secondary and micronutrients showed that soils were
predominantly Zn deficient (63.4%), B (21.4%) and Fe (12.2%), Cu, S, and Mn was less than
10% and Ca and Mg deficiency was 14.4 and 18.0%, respectively.
Crops and cropping systems
Agriculture is the major occupation in Tamil Nadu with a total cultivated area of 59.9 lakh
hectares with a net sown area of 48.19 lakh ha. The principal food crops are rice, maize, jowar,
bajra, ragi, and pulses and the cash crops include cotton, sugarcane, oilseeds, coffee, tea, rubber,
and chilies. Plantation crops like tea, coffee, cardamom and rubber also grown in hilly regions.
Fertilizer consumption
In 2016-17, total consumption of N, P 2O 5 and K 2O was 5,18,891, 2,28,714 and 1,59,564 tonnes,
respectively. Consumption of ZnSO 4 was 2,300 and 2,578 tonnes in Kharif and Rabi season,
respectively.
