Land-site suitability evaluation for tea, cardamom and rubber using Geo-spatial technology in Wayanad district, Kerala
Article Main
Abstract
Kerala is one of the important states contributing to the production of plantation crops and spices in the country. Soil and Land evaluation in various land utilization types has been carried out to assess the land suitability for tea, cardamom and rubber in Wayanad district of Kerala. Different soil physico-chemical parameters like, pH, electrical conductivity, organic carbon and physical attributes database of soil mapping units developed in inventorying of soil resources at 1:50K scale using LISS-III satellite data on soil series and its association used to evaluate soil site suitability for tea, cardamom and rubber. The results indicated that for tea around 55.79% area is suitable for cultivation of which 14.62 %, 25.51 % and 15.66 % found highly suitable (S1), moderately suitable (S2) and marginally suitable (S3), respectively. About 26.92 % and 12.10 % found moderately suitable (S2) and marginally suitable (S3) for cardamom and about 32.48 % area marginally suitable (S3) for rubber. The area unsuitable for cultivation (N) of tea, cardamom and rubber were found to be 11.69 %, 28.46 % and 34.99 %, respectively, due to constraints like relief, topography, soil physico-chemical attributes such as base saturation, pH and soil moisture regime etc. The study proposed an integrated methodology for mapping and assessing suitability of land using remote sensing and GIS techniques.
Article Details
Article Details
Base saturation, GIS, Land suitability, Satellite data, Soil pH
Buol, S. W., Southard, R. J., Graham, R. C. and McDaniel, P. A. (2003). Soil Genesis and Classification. Wiley Blackwell publishing house.
Chandrasekhar, T. R., Jana, M. K., Thomas, J., Vijayakumar, K. R. and Sethuraj, M. R. (1990). Seasonal changes in physiological characteristics and yield in newly opened trees of Hevea Brasiliensis. In North Konkan. Indian Journal of Natural Rubber Research. 3(2): 88-89.
Dumanski, J., Phipps, M. and Huffman, E. (1987). A Study of Relationships between Soil Survey Data and Agricultural Land Use Using Information Theory. Canadian Journal of Soil Science. 67(1): 95-102.
FAO. (1976). A Framework for Land Evaluation: Soils Bulletin: 32, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome.
FAO. (1977). FAO Guidelines for Soil Profile Description. Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome.
Jenny, H. (1980). The Soil Resources: Origin and Behavior. Springer-Verlag. New York, NY, USA. 377.
John, K. (2003). Cardamom situation in Guatemala. Spice India. 16: 24-25 & 31.
Kudrat, M., Tiwari, A. K., Saha, S. K. and Bhan, S. K. (1992). Soil resource mapping using IRS 1A LISS-II digital data- A case study of Kandi area adjacent to Chandigarh, India. International Journal of Remote Sensing. 13(17): 3287–3302.
Mirajkar, M. A. and Srinivasan, T. R. (1975). Landsat photo interpretation for preparing a small-scale map through a multistage approach. Journal of Indian Society of Remote Sensing. 3: 87-95.
Nair, M. K., Biddappa, C. C., Palaniswami, C. and Updhyay, A. K. (1996). A Critical Review of Plant Nutrient Supply Needs, Efficiency, and Policy Issues for Plantation Crops for the Years 2000-2025 AD. In: J. S. Kanwar and J. C. Katyal (Eds) 1996. Proceedings of Symposium on Plant nutrient needs, supply, efficiency and policy issues: 2000-2025. National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi, India: pp 329.
Pruthi, J. S. (1993). Major Spices of India - Crop Management, Post Harvest Technology. Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi: 156.
Rao, G.S.L.H.V.P., Rao, A.V.R.K., Krishnakumar, K.N. and Gopakumar, C.S. (2009). Impact of climate change on food and plantation crops in the humid Tropics. In: Proceedings of workshop. ASPRS Archives XXXVIII-8/W3: 127-130.
Naidu, L. G. K., Ramamurthy, V., Challa, O., Hegde, R.and Krishnan, P. (2006). Soil-SiteSuitability Criteria for Major Crops. NBSS Publ. No. 129, NBSS&LUP, Nagpur. : 118.
Santiago, E. (1967). Hints for selection of site for cardamom plantations. Cardamom News. 1: 1-7.
Shivaprasad, C. R., Korikanthimath, V.S., Gaddi, A.V., Nasre, R. A., Koyal, A. and Krishnan, P. (2001). Soil site suitability evaluation for cardamom- a case study in Kodagu district, Karnataka. Journal of Spices and Aromatic crops. 10(2): 99-103.
Soil Survey Staff. (2011). Keys to Soil Taxonomy. Department of Agriculture: Natural Resouces Conservation Service. United States.
Sys, C.E. and Debaveye, J. (1991). Land evaluation, part 1: Principles in land evaluation and crop production calculation. In: General administration for development cooperation. (Agric. Pub. No: 7, p.274) Brussels: Belgiem.
Vijayakumar, K. R., Dey, S. K., Chandrasekhar, T. R., Devakumar, A. S., Mohanakrishna, T., Rao, P. S and Sethuraj, M. R. (1998). Irrigation requirement of rubber trees (Hevea Brasiliensis) in the subhumid tropics. Agricultural Water Management. 35: 245-259.
Gopakumar C. S. (2011). Impacts of Climate variability on Agriculture in Kerala. Ph.D. Thesis. Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin, India.
Walkley, A. J. and Black, C. A. (1934). An examination of the method for determination soil organic matter and a proposed modification of the chromic acid titration method. Soil Science, 37: 29-38.
Sahu, N., Reddy, G. P. Obi, Kumar, N. and Nagaraju, M. S. S. (2014). High resolution remote sensing, GPS and GIS in soil resource mapping and characterization- A Review, Agricultural Review,,36 (1): 14-25. ISSN:0976-0539.
This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) © Author (s)
