Assessment of Soil Quality and Soil Health under Different Land Use Systems in a Mollisol Region of Uttarakhand

Abstract

The present study focuses on assessing soil quality and soil health across diverse land use systems in a Mollisol. The study area was located at Norman E. Borlaug Crop Research Centre, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar (29° N, 79.28° E and 243.8 m above MSL). The land use systems selected for study were rice–wheat–green gram, rice–pea (vegetable)-maize, rice-potato –okra, rice–berseem + oat + mustard (fodder)-maize + cowpea (fodder), maize–wheat–cowpea, sorghum (fodder)-yellow sarsonblack gram, guava + lemon, poplar + turmeric, eucalyptus + turmeric and fallow (uncultivated land). Soil samples were collected from depths of 0-20 cm and analysis of soil physical, chemical, and biological properties were performed. These data were utilized to compute both soil quality and soil health indices. Results indicated that soil quality and health were notably higher in agroforestry-based systems compared to field crops, horticulture and finally, uncultivated land.