Abstract—Urea is an important Nitrogenous fertilizer. However, uncoated Urea when applied to crops is prone to nutrient losses due to run off, volatilisation and leaching. Answer to this problem lies in application of controlled release urea which plays a dual role of enhancing nitrogen use efficiency by plants leading to improved crop yields and also controls environmental pollution by reducing hazardous gaseous emissions and water eutrophication. The present study aims to model and simulate the nutrient release from urea coated with Neem (Azadirachta indica) oil coating (NCU) unveiling the three stages of nutrient release as explained in literature for other coated fertilizers. Multi diffusion model is developed for multilayer including the Neem Oil coating, water domain and couples the Finite element approximation with 2D geometry, to improve the accuracy of simulation urea diffusivity in water is taken as a function of its concentration. The simulation results agree well with the experimental data with standard error of estimate varying from 0.016 to 0.023. The model not only predicted nutrient release from NCU but also described the internal release mechanism from the core to coating interface and coating interface to water environment. The model was also validated with experimental results for urea coated with other materials also differing from NCU in core and coating thickness.
 

Index Terms—Controlled Release Fertiliser (CRF), multi-diffusion modelling, nutrient Release, neem oil coated urea, urea diffusion

Cite: Shiv Om Meena, Manish Vashishtha, and Ankush Meena, "Modelling and Simulation of Nutrient Release from Neem (Azadirachta Indica) Oil Coated Urea," Journal of Advanced Agricultural Technologies, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 32-37, March 2019. Doi: 10.18178/joaat.6.1.32-37