The study attempts to quantify the root biomass and density, nodulation, crop biomass and grain yield of soybean, to analyze crop growth and energy (renewable and non-renewable) inputs in relation to fertilizer-NPK and organic manure. Observations were recorded from soybean grown with no fertilizer, NPK and NPK + FYM (farmyard manure). I The root biomass (BMroot) increased significantly with NPK + FYM compared to NPK and control. The trend of BMroot was best fitted with a third order polynomial. Root length density was higher in NPK + FYM. Biomass of stem, petiole and leaf were significantly greater in NPK + FYM than other treatments, relative contribution to total biomass at physiological maturity were stem 29%, petiole 9%, leaf 17% and pod 46%; quadratic regression models best represented the stem, petiole and leaf biomass data. A maximum LAI of 4.88, total biomass of 633 g m(-2) at maturity, CGR of 18.4 g m(-2) d(-1) were recorded in NPK + FYM. Grain yields increased by 72.5 and 98.5%, and stover yields by 56.0 and 94.8% in NPK and NPK + FYM, respectively over control. Though the total energy input in NPK + FYM was greater than those in NPK and control, the share of renewable energy was much higher with greater net energy output and non-renewable energy productivity in NPK + FYM than NPK. The use efficiency of non-renewable energy was also higher in NPF + FYM. Thus, a combination of NPK-fertilizer and organic manure (FYM) could be the viable nutrient management option for soybean production. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.