| Popis: |
Characterization and classification of rice growing soils of rainfed region of West Bengal is having an utmost importance for developing optimal agricultural land use planning. In the context of ever increasing food demand under dwindling agricultural land availability, rainfed areas have got the attention for enhancing food grain production for the national food basket. Hence, in the present study, we made an effort to characterize six rice growing soils placed in six different landform situations (plateau top, dissected plateau, plateau fringe, undulating upland, alluvial plains and valley fill) and classify accordingly for resource inventory of Rajnagar block, Birbhum district, West Bengal. Results depicted that, rice is grown mainly in Alfisols and Inceptisols in this block with varying morphological and physico-chemical characteristics. The soils are moderately deep to very deep with sandy loam to clay loam surface texture. Soils of plateau top, dissected plateau, plateau fringe, undulating upland, alluvial plains and valley fill were classified as Typic Haplustalfs, Aeric Endoaqualfs, Typic Haplustalfs, Typic Haplustepts, Aeric Endoaquepts, Typic Haplustalfs, respectively. The double crop rice ecology (rice-mustard) showed significantly (P=0.05) higher surface soil organic carbon (SOC) stock in surface as compared to the other monocrop rice ecologies. Among all the landforms compared, soils of valley fill region had the highest surface SOC stock (14.5 Mg ha-1) followed by plains (10.4 Mg ha-1), plateau fringe (7.7 Mg ha-1), plateau top (8.1 Mg ha-1), dissected plateau (7.2 Mg ha-1) and upland (6.9 Mg ha-1). Significantly (P=0.05) higher total profile SOC stock suggested a better soil health in valley fill and plains as compared to other areas that enhances our understanding about the need of the implementation of carbon management based land use planning for higher future productivity of these soils under environmental sustenance. |
