Trials on energy plantation on waste land

Abstract

India has 93.6 million ha of waste land. Out of these 7.10 million ha of waste land is affected by salinity and alkalinity. Thus waste land utilization and reclamation of salt affected soils can be affected by growing such hardy plants and using them in an integrated way. Organic recycling is crucial for the maintenance of soil fertility, a key factor in crop yield. Continuous application of chemical fertilizers whether alone or in combination to soil has some negative effects on it. Addition of any appreciable quantities of mineral fertilizers to the waste material will not be much economical and scientifically recommendable. This is because of the fact that nitrogen fertilizers get lost through volatilization and denitrification. Keeping this in view, it is, therefore, necessary that a major and substantial effort should be made to use natural and inexpensive materials available for improving the soil fertility for waste land utilization. Secondly, the competitive use of firewood for a variety of alternative purposes is an aspect which needs to be looked into. Paper and pulp industry, timber industry, mining industry and ferroalloy industry are some of the main industrial users of firewood. Hence, firewood is in short-supply in India at present and it will continue to be in the foreseeable future. Evaluation of plants for bioenergy production has received considerable attention during the last few years.

Thus energy plantation on waste land is an important national priority to meet a variety of growing needs of rural people in developing countries. Although a number of plants are recommended for reclamation of soil, no study has been conducted on the effect of energy plantation on highly saline soil and the effect of different parameters (like spacing, watering, manuring, etc.) on biomass yield. With this in view, experiments were conducted on nursery raising and energy plantation (i.e. Jatropha curcus, Leucaena leucocephala, Prosopis juliflora, Acacia nilotica) on high saline soil as well as on normal soil (as control). Different parameters (like spacing and watering) were studied to get maximum biomass yield. Interesting data was recorded. The obtained biomass of some plants was utilized in an integrated way integrating microbial protein production, sericulture and biogas production for optimal utilization and to keep environment clean.