ICRISAT, India soils: yesterday, today and tomorrow

摘要

Associated red and black soils are common in the Deccan\udplateau and the Indian peninsula. The red soils\udare formed due to the progressive landscape reduction\udprocess and black soils due to the aggradation processes;\udand they are often spatially associated maintaining\udtheir typical characteristics over the years.\udThese soils are subject to changes due to age-long\udmanagement practices and the other factors like climate\udchange. To maintain soil quality, it is essential to\udmonitor changes in soil properties preferably using\udbenchmark (BM) soil sites. One such example lies at\udthe International Crops Research Institute for the\udSemi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) farm in Patancheru,\udIndia where red (Patancheru) and black (Kasireddipalli)\udsoils co-exist in close association under almost\udsimilar topographical condition, which also represents\udvery commonly occurring spatially associated soils.\udThe database generated over the years for these two\uddominant soils that are under cultural practices for\udthe last 2–3 decades, helps us understand the relative\udchanges in properties over a time scale. To do this\udexercise, we revisited the BM spots as the data on the\udoriginal characterization of these soils since the development of the farm, are available, for comparative\udevaluation. We also attempted to make prediction of\udfuture changes in properties for these two important\udand representative black and red soils of the ICRISAT\udfarm in Patancheru, India.