Soil health assessment of Crop Research Centre through scoring function graph

Abstract

To assess the soil health of Crop Research Centre of SVPUAT, Meerut soil samples from 0-15 cm depth were collected, processed and analyzed for various physical, chemical and biological properties viz., bulk density, infiltration rate, aggregate stability, pH, available P, K, Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn and OC ( %) during 2013-14. Study indicates that soils of study area are sandy clay and clay loam in texture with low to medium in health. Scoring function graph of the properties was developed for the rating of individual indicators, following the work of Andrews et al. (2004). Overall soil health was judged by averaging the rating of all studied indicators. The individual indicator rating for bulk density, infiltration rate, aggregate stability, pH, available P, K, Fe, Mn , Cu , Zn and OC (%) were 85, 83, 83, 24, 97, 40, 90, 0, 77 ,0 and 56, respectively for sandy clay soil and 97, 35, 76, 20, 97, 79, 45, 0, 63, 0 and 87, respectively for clay loam soil. For sandy clay soil out of 11indicators studied 6 (bulk density, infiltration rate, aggregate stability, available P, Zn and Fe) showed high score, 2 (available K and OC %) showed medium and rest of the 3 (pH, available Mn and Cu) scored low while for clay loam soil 5 indicators (bulk density, aggregate stability, available P, K, and OC) were found highly rated, 3 (infiltration rate, available Fe and Zn) medium and 3 (pH, available Mn, Cu) low. However, overall quality score of both the soil was medium and low (57 and 54 out of 100, respectively). Hence, on the basis of study, it can be concluded that soils of CRC are low to medium in health. However infiltration, pH and toxicity of Mn and Cu in soil invite special attention to manage the sustainable productivity.