Concluding Remarks

Abstract

The book ‘Simple methods to study pedology and edaphology of tropical Indian soils’ closes with a chapter ‘Concluding Remarks’. It has been always difficult to manage tropical soils to sustain their productivity because comprehensive knowledge on their formation remained elusive for a long time. Soil care has become a national agenda in the Indian context to meet the food demand for ever increasing human population. This task demands the basic pedological research to resolve some of the enigmatic edaphological aspects of soils to develop improved management practices. During the last few decades Indian pedologists provided insights into pedology, paleopedology, polygenesis, mineralogy, taxonomy and edaphology when the focus of soil research changed qualitatively due to the use of geomorphic and climatic history of landscapes alongside the use of high resolution mineralogical, micromorphological and age-control tools. Expansion of basic and fundamental knowledge base on Indian tropical soils provided unique guiding principles to develop several index soil properties as simple diagnostic analytical methods to study the pedology and edaphology of major soil types of India. This chapter highlights the major theme areas of soils (Chaps. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) that have been dealt in the perspective of the recent developments in simple methods to study pedology and edaphology.