Manganese (Mn) like other micronutrients (zinc, copper, iron, boron, molybdenum, cobalt and chlorine) is required by plants in small quantities, but it is essential and indispensable for plant nutrition. It is essential for many enzymatic reactions and plays a prominent role in photosynthesis. It is also known to be important in carbon dioxide assimilation and nitrogen metabolism. An inadequate supply of this element results in poor growth & development and reduced yields of the crops. Severe deficiency of this element may result in complete crop failure. In Punjab, its deficiency at large scale was first observed during 1979-80 on wheat crop in coarse textured soils under rice-wheat rotation, in many villages of Ferozepur district. At some places,the impact of the deficiency was so severe that the farmers had to plough down the wheat crop because of its extremely poor growth. Since then its deficiency had been observed to be increasing on such soils. At present, manganese deficiency has become aserious problem of highly permeable, coarse textured soils under intensive cropping especially in rice - wheat rotation. This is due to leaching losses of manganese due to frequent and heavy irrigations during rice cultivation. Wheat and berseem crops in Rabi season suffer from manganese deficiency in these soils.
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