Traditional Knowledge for Sustainable Management of Soils - Principles of Sustainable Soil Management in Agroecosystems - page 327

FIGURE 13.9 Traditional crop management practices in hill ecosystems of India.
(Reprinted from ICAR Research Complex, North East region, Meghalaya, Annual Report.
With permission.)
the farmers by flocculating the soil using saline water for irrigation. In the midwest
hinterlands with low rainfall in Maharashtra, the sodic Vertisols in valley plains are
irrigated with saline waters to grow salt-tolerant crops like safflower and coriander
(Venkateswarlu 2004). The marshy lands in coastal Gujarat are sodic and not perme-
able. Viswanath (1937) reported that farmers spray the extract of a halophyte, rich in
salts, along with irrigation to flocculate such marshy soils.
13.6 TRADITIONAL LAND USE SYSTEMS
Farmers in India have evolved land use systems and cropping patterns based not
only on climate but also on the soil types. The entire cropping pattern and cultural
traditions evolved in a given region are based on the soil type. Farmers generally
considered edaphic factors in choosing the crop and the level of management. Soil
depth and texture are two major factors considered by them.
13.6.1 S oil d epth and C rop M anaGeMent
In the Yavatmal district of Maharashtra, the Vertisols occur in a toposequence.
The depth increases as we move down the slope. The predominant cropping sys-
tems are cotton and sorghum in the kharif season (Joshi et al. 1996). The following
table describes how the farmers use production inputs depending on the soil depth.
Farmers apply FYM and higher fertilizer inputs in a deep soil and much less in
a shallow soil ( Table 13.10 ). Improved crop varieties with high yield potential are
grown in the better soil. They also invest on pest management only on the crop
grown in good soil.
Thus, the resource allocation has been adopted to suit the production capacity of
the soil type. Another example is the postmonsoon rabi sorghum crop grown in the
medium black soils of Maharashtra and Karnataka ( Table 13.11 ). In these soils, the
variety M-35-1 has been popular with farmers for over 50 years because no other