Soil Fertility Management in a Mid-altitudinal Village Landscape of Garhwal Himalaya, India

Abstract

Forests are socially valued due to their source of fuel wood, fodder and leaf litter and minor forest products.
Forests are the source of leaf litter, fodder, fuelwood and other non-timber forest products. The study village differentiated into four land use/land covers, namely, forest, homegardens, rainfed agriculture land and irrigated agriculture land. The potential vegetation is a temperate forest type. Forest dominated by Alnus nepalensis, Lyonia ovalifolia, Myrica esculenta, Pyrus pashia and Rhododendron arboreum. Farmyard manure derived from a mixture of leaf litter collected from the forest and excreta of livestock is the major soil fertility replenishment in the study area. Homegardens are multi-species small tiny plots located close to dwellings comprising a variety of fruit tree species and vegetables. Homegardens receive kitchen waste and farmyard manure as supplement of manure. Rainfed agriculture is the most extensive land use on the terrace. A large variety of crops are grown like wheat, rice, finger millet, mustard, black gram, cowpea, green gram etc. in such a way that three crops are grown in two years. Farmyard manure is supplemented for crops in rainfed agricultural land. Irrigated agriculture confined to valleys with two crops (wheat and rice) harvested in a year. Soil type was loamy soil type. Soils were acidic with mean pH varying from 4.17 in forest to 5.7 in homegardens. The organic carbon and nitrogen was highest in mixed forest and phosphorus in homegardens. The cropping pattern and farmyard manure input are best practices for soil fertility management in Garhwal Himalaya.