CHARACTERIZATION AND SOIL RESOURCE EVALUATION OF A MICROWATERSHED IN RAICHUR DISTRICT
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Date
2014-08-30
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UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES, RAICHUR
Abstract
An investigation was made to characterize and evaluate the soil resources of Patapura microwatershed in North-eastern dry zone of Karnataka under Semi-arid tropics for their morphological, physical, chemical, fertility characteristics and suitability for major crops. Among ten pedons obtained from three different landforms viz, upland, midland and lowland revealed the slope varies from nearly level (0-3 %) to gently sloppy land (5-8 %). The soils developed on topographically, higher elevations have dark reddish brown (5 YR hue) and those developed on lower elevation have dark greyish brown (7.5 YR hue) and dark grey (10 YR hue) colour. The physical characteristics like soil texture, B.D., moisture retention at 33 kPa, 1500 kPa, AWC ranged from sandy loam to clayey, 1.22 to 1.70 Mg m-3, 9.5 to 33.7 %, 5.9 to 24.5 %, 2.3 to 15.4 % and chemical characteristics like pH, EC (1:2.5) in soil: water ratio, O.C., CaCO3, CEC, B.S. and ESP ranged from neutral (6.5) to alkaline (9.3), 0.04 to 0.30 dS m-1 (non-saline) low (0.6 g kg-1) to medium (5.8 g kg-1), 6.4 to 56.4 c mol (p+) kg-1, non-calcareous (0.4 %) to calcareous (23.6 %), 41.3 to 98.7 % and 1.6 to 20.8 %, respectively.
Total sand and bulk density were negatively significantly correlated for all the physico-chemical and fertility properties of soils and showed that moisture retention at 33 kPa (r= -0.84**), 1500 kPa (r= -0.73**), MWHC (r= -0.83**) and at 33 kPa (r= -0.80**), 1500 kPa (r= -0.69**), MWHC (r= -0.97**), respectively. CEC was positively significantly correlated with clay (r=0.89**), moisture retention at 33 kPa (r=0.84**), 1500 kPa (r=0.72**) and MWHC (r=0.82**) but it was negatively and significantly correlated between sand (r= -0.85**) and bulk density (r= -0.81**).
The agricultural land of the area qualifies for land capability classes III, IV, V, VII and marginally (S3) to unsuitable (N1) for surface irrigability classes. Generally, higher elevated areas were marginally suitable (S3) for cultivation of cotton, sorghum and pigeonpea. Presently, lowland was unsuitable (N1) for cultivation of these crops due to severe constraints of drainage and soil fertility aspects.
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