Soil Suitability of Some Major Fruit Crops for Sustainable Production in the IGP Region of India-A Case Study

Author: Ashok Kumar, S.K. Mahapatra and Jaya N. Surya

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Abstract

Horticultural crops, particularly the fruit crops are important for ensuring nutritional security as well as livelihood security. However, the fruit crops occupy less area compare to cereals and other agricultural crops and the declining landholdings size due to fast population growth and urbanization further jeopardize the area under fruit crops. Thus, for ensuring effective and efficient utilization of the lands possibilities of alternate land use options such as fruits crop cultivation need to be explored. In this context, land evaluation in terms of soil suitability assessment is an important tool for identifying suitable areas for fruit crop production. But lack of information on soil-site suitability poses great challenge to the policy planners and other development agencies. Thus, the study was carried out in the Chhata tehsil of upper Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) region of IGP of India with the aim of mapping the suitable areas for various agro-horticultural crops including the fr

Keywords

IGP region; fruit crops; soil suitability; sustainable production

Conclusion

The study aims to evaluate the actual soil and site parameters which affect the suitability of various fruit crops for sustainable production. The most prominent soil parameters include texture, depth, slope, EC, pH, OC content, erosion and drainage while, rainfall and temperature are the most important climate parameters that affects the suitability of an area for crop production. Soils of the study area are very deep except Barsana soil series, slightly acidic to strongly alkaline in reaction, non-saline to saline, low in organic carbon and low to medium in CEC and base saturation. Soil suitability evaluation reveals that among the fruit crops, papaya and mango have maximum area i.e., 60.9 and 22.2%, respectively under highly suitable class (S1). However, area under moderately suitable class (S2) observed to be highest for citrus (83.1%) and ber crop (74.4%) cultivation. About 59.3 and 54.3% area evaluated to be under marginally suitable class (S3) for mango and guava cultivation. Pr

References

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How to cite this article

Kumar, A., Mahapatra, S.K. and Surya, J. N. (2021). Soil Suitability of Some Major Fruit Crops for Sustainable Production in the IGP Region of India-A Case Study. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 13(1): 200-210.