Soil quality and productivity improvement: Indian story

Abstract

Restoration and improvement of soil quality is the prerequisite for ensuring agricultural productivity and food security in India. Although intensification enhanced food production, it led to a decline in factor productivity, health of environment, and an impairment in soil quality. The declined soil quality is manifested through impaired ecosystem services and also loss in yield and profitability. Soil organic C (SOC) is considered as the panacea for maintaining the soil quality through improved microbial activities, water availability and nutrient use efficiency. The present review emphasizes the need for maintenance of SOC content in Indian soils challenged with high oxidative loss out of high temperature, good moisture and cultivation led soil perturbations. Importance of balanced fertilization through soil test, integrated nutrient management, and adoption of innovative farming practices such as conservation agriculture for enhancement of SOC storage and consequent improvement in soil quality even under intensive cultivation in various agro-climatic regions of the country is emphasized.

Assessing soil quality for rehabilitation of salt-affected agroecosystem: A comprehensive review

“…Clogging of pore space restricts air entry and lowers hydraulic conductivity (Bennett et al, 2019). Presence of Na + and CO 3 2-/ HCO 3 − and poor microbial activity under alkaline soil pH conditions limits carbon supply and promotes its loss because of increased organic matter mobility (Datta et al, 2019;Basak et al, 2021aDeb et al, 2020. The precipitation of Ca 2+ as amorphous CaCO 3 aggravated the Na + -induced toxicity and nutritional deficiency of Ca 2+ (Rai et al, 2021b).…”

“…However, it is difficult to find such sites (as a reference level) for comparison to capture possible degradation or aggradation caused by anthropogenic perturbation. Therefore, a relative assessment of the quality of soils with varying anthropogenic stresses is performed for screening and subsequent adoption of less/non-damaging types for upkeeping health (Basak et al, 2021a). Screening of the indicator constitutes an important part of soil quality assessment.…”

“…To combine the indicators, sometimes different weights are given to them based on personal judgment or values of the coefficients of determinations of multiple regression, principal component analysis (PCA), and discriminant analysis (DA) associated with those indicators during screening through different statistical methods in the form of a weighted additive or simple additive (Andrews and Carroll, 2001;de Lima et al, 2008;Mukherjee and Lal, 2014). The soil quality index (SQI) is developed for soils under different management practices and cropping systems in a large number of long-term fertility experiments in India by several researchers (Basak et al, 2021a; Figure 4). Recently, Soni et al (2021) assessed the SQI for saline soils under tillage, mulching, and deficit saline water irrigation.…”

“…Soil health or soil quality is largely defined as "fitness for use" or "capacity of the soil to function" (Karlen et al, 1997). A modest attempt had been made for assessing the soil quality of agricultural soil (Masto et al, 2008a;Martins et al, 2017;Basak et al, 2021a). But only a few groups had attempted a comprehensive assessment of soil quality of salt-affected soils.…”

Assessment of Soil Properties under Long Term Integrated Nutrient Management Using STCR-based Targeted Yield Equations under Rice-wheat Cropping System

“…With emerging environmental footprints, there are stoking fears about yield stagnation or contraction in the R-W system [6,7]. In order to safeguard agricultural productivity and nutrition security in India, the quality of the soil must be restored and strengthened [8].…”