Nutrient Management Strategies for Improving Soil Health and Productivity of Ravine Lands

Abstract

The deep ravine of Chambal is the most fragile stressed ecosystem and suffers heavily because of erosion. The soils of this region are sandy loam with very little organic matter and very poor binding capacity. There are tremendous soil (> 30 Mg ha⁻¹ year⁻¹), water (> 70% of rainfall), and nutrient (> 350 kg of NPK year⁻¹) losses during rainy season, and this problem is still aggravating to the farmers by spreading to fertile lands. The loosely held soil particles favor high infiltration rate (> 7 cm h⁻¹), and the high elevation differences between land and riverbed are catalyzing reason to create a high gradient for gushing underground water current toward the river which carries soil and water with it. The formation of ravine is a hydraulic energy-generated phenomenon, and it can be cured only after a clear understanding of how to minimize hydraulic gradient and hydrodynamic pressures. Further, advancement of ravine can be checked very easily by adopting indigenous and innovative technologies based on energy concept. Multistep leveling is one of the very recent and innovative technologies and is economically viable with almost checking all kinds of losses, whereas improvised gabion structure is a very economical and suitable conservation method to check/minimize soil and water losses under ravine conditions. Adoption of various kinds of modules also helped in minimizing natural losses among them. Silvopastoral and silvi-medicinal systems are very effective from point of conservations, while agro-horti, agroforestry, silvopastoral, and silvi-medicinal modules are most feasible under ravine conditions and are efficient in the order mentioned.