Drip Fertigation with Fertilizer Prescription Through STCR—IPNS—A Way Forward Towards Climate Change Mitigation

Climate change worsens the serious challenges faced by the agricultural sector worldwide, more particularly in developing nations where the food production remains low, leading to poverty, weakness and food insecurity. Even as we move towards higher productivity, due emphasis has to be laid on agricultural systems which would positively reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and mitigate the environmental impact. This has remained as the long-term interest of the researchers, policy framing governments, agribusinesses and more importantly, the farming community. Cotton is the most widespread profitable non-food crop. In Tamil Nadu, urea is the main form of N fertilizer, and it also contributes for N2O emission from soils. In this context, this paper puts forth the most relevant and promising climate change mitigating agricultural technology by addressing twin issues of water scarcity and nutrient use efficiency through drip fertigation with decision on fertilizer application based on the fertilizer prescription equations (FPEs). The FPEs were derived based on the concept of Integrated Plant Nutrition System employing Soil Test Crop Response model (STCR-IPNS). The fertilizer nitrogen requirement for an yield target of 3.50 t ha−1 ranged from 140 to 164 kg ha−1 with fertilizer savings of 24–48 kg N ha−1 when compared to general nitrogen recommendation. STCR-IPNS approach indirectly avoids wastage of fertilizer and reduces the nitrous oxide emission. This is effective as a climate change mitigation tool and also improved the crop yield and quality. The findings of this study proved the supremacy of STCR-IPNS-based fertilizer optimization for improving crop yield and quality, with limited water resource and fertilizer input without compromising climate change mitigation strategies.