Characteristics and Classification of Soils Representing Major Land forms in Vadamalalpeta Mandal of Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh

摘要

Soil is the most precious natural resource. Maintaining the soils in a state of high productivity on sustainable basis is essential for meeting the basic needs of the people. The knowledge of soils with respect to their extent, distribution, characteristics and potential use are important for optimizing land use. Further, the study of soils today has assumed an increased importance due to rapidly declining land area under agriculture, declining soil fertility and increasing soil degradation through unbridled population increase, urbanization, improper land use policies and irrational and imbalanced use of inputs (Kanwar 2004 ). All the above factors necessitate significant shift in emphasis of Soil Science research away from maximum crop productionto the sustainability of crop production systems through maintenance of soil health without undergoing deterioration. Necessity has always been felt for detailed mandal-wise soil databases to take up various agricultural developmental activities in Andhra Pradesh. Keeping these factors in mind, the present investigation was carried out to characterize and classify the soils in Vadamalapeta Mandal of Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh.