This bulletin aims to demonstrate the importance of potassium in soil-plant systems. It focuses on the relations between soil and mineral K, its various forms in soil and its unchecked depletion from farmlands. The situation in the state of Punjab, India, exemplifies the grave situation of soil nutrient depletion, especially potassium. Between 1960-2005, production of food grains has increased more than eight-fold in the state, while production of cotton has tripled. Each increment in production has resulted in a steep rise in soil nutrient depletion. This is reflected in the fact that potassium levels in soils have not been replenished. The bulletin also challenges the myth that potassium is rarely a limiting nutrient in the soils of Punjab. A few experiments that demonstrate that potassium is in fact limiting in soils, must be viewed in the context of the large-scale potassium exhaustion in Punjab over the last 50 years, caused by irrigation and intensive cultivation, with little potassium credit to the soils.

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