A novel soil quality assessment method for sustainable soil management and enhancing crop productivity in tribal areas of central India

• Published in: Environment conservation journal Vol. 22; no. 3; pp. 315 - 324
• Main Authors: Selladurai, Rajendiran S., Dotaniya, Mohan Lal, Vassanda Coumar, M, Kundu, Samaresh, Sinha, Nishant Kumar, Tripathi, A.K., Srivastava, Sanjay, Saha, J.K., Patra, A.K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Rishikesh Action for Sustainable, Efficacious 19.12.2021; Action for Sustainable Efficacious Development and Awareness
• Subjects: Agricultural management; Agricultural production; Crop production; Crop yield; Crops; Ecological function; Environmental degradation; Environmental monitoring; Mathematical analysis; Methods; Minimum Data Set (MDS); Organic carbon; Organic soils; Parameters; Productivity; Quality assessment; Quality control; Relative Yield (RY); Soil; Soil chemistry; Soil contamination; Soil degradation; Soil depth; Soil improvement; Soil investigations; Soil management; Soil quality; Soil Quality Assessment; Soil Quality Index (SQI); Soils; Sustainability; Sustainability management; Sustainable practices; Sustainable Soil Management; Tribal Area; Zinc; India
• ISSN: 0972-3099; 2278-5124
• DOI: 10.36953/ECJ.2021.22337

Soil quality degradation is a major threat to any agricultural production system. Therefore periodical monitoring of soil quality status is inevitable for sustainable management of agricultural production systems. Though there are various methods available to assess the soil quality, simple and management oriented methods are necessary. The current investigation aimed to evaluate soil quality of tribal areas of central India adopting minimum dataset of 15 soil physical, chemical and biological parameters. A novel scoring technique was followed to score soil quality indicators based on its relation with crop yield, degree of variation and percent deficiency. Relative soil quality index (RSQI) was calculated and was correlated with crop productivity. Most of the soils in the region had poor soil quality (77.2% in Jhabua, 85.4% in Alirajpur and 67.2% in Dhar) with low crop yield. The major constraints of crop production in these areas were low soil organic carbon (<0.5%), available N (<280 kg ha-1), S (<10 mg kg-1), P (<10 kg ha-1), Zn (<0.5 mg kg-1), dehydogenase activity (10 ?g TPF g-1 24 h-1) and soil depth (<1 m). Adopting sustainable management practices could improve soil quality and crop productivity. This new approach is simple and systematic; this principle can be easily adoptable to other locations, and principally focuses on management related and soil parameters that constraint to production and ecological functions.