A case study of fly ash utilization for enhancement of growth and yield of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.) to sustainable agriculture

Fly ash (FA) is a coal combustion by-product of brick kiln, thermal power and incineration plants operated either based on coal and biomass or industrial solid waste. It creates environmental problems attached with their unfair utilization and problems of disposal. The growing of environmental awareness and increasing energy and material requirement will foster recycling. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and Pollution Control Board (CPCB) have prepared guidelines for utilization of FA in agriculture as soil ameliorant and modifier. Recycling will promote reuse of precious materials which would otherwise be wasted and alleviate energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from extraction and processing. FA has potential to serve as fertilizer for improving the soil textures at optimum amount. The main purpose of this work was to use the pollutant as fertilizer. Present work was done to study the effect of FA on some biochemical and morpho-physiological properties and yield of V. unguiculata. From the obtained results after statistical analysis of data, it can be evinced that the use of FA in lower amount (25 g/m2) has sufficient quantity of macro- and micro-nutrients, which appear to be useful for the plant growth and yield of V. unguiculata, but higher amount (50, 100 g/m2) of FA showed detrimental impact on plant. The low concentration of FA improves the structure, texture of the soil which enhances the fertility of soil. So, FA can be used as a fertilizer for the enhancement of growth and yield of cow pea.