Impact of postburn jhum agriculture on soil carbon pools in the north-eastern Himalayan region of India

Soil Research ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (6) ◽  
pp. 615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lungmuana ◽  
B. U. Choudhury ◽  
Saurav Saha ◽  
S. B. Singh ◽  
Anup Das ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Organic Carbon ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Shifting Cultivation ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Himalayan Region ◽  
The North ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Eastern Himalayan Region ◽  
Vegetation Burning

Land-use change, particularly soil organic carbon (SOC) loss induced by shifting cultivation (jhum) is a common land degradation issue in the hilly tracts of the humid tropics. The SOC concentration comprises different pools (labile and recalcitrant fractions), and each fraction responds to temporal dynamics of adopted management practices at varying magnitudes, such as deforestation followed by cultivation. However, information on the variation of different SOC pools due to cultural practices of vegetation burning and postburn agricultural practices (crop production) associated with shifting cultivation remains inadequate. In the present investigation, we examined the effect of burning and postburning cultivation on SOC pools across different forest fallow periods at Kolasib district, Mizoram state of the north-eastern Himalayan Region of India. Results revealed increase in the soil C stocks and total organic carbon (TOC) due to the increase in the length of fallow periods ranging from 3 to 23 years. The TOC decreased significantly compared with antecedent concentrations before vegetation burning. This was mostly attributed to the reduction in contribution of active pools (very labile and labile) to TOC from 69% to 60%. However, contribution of passive pools (less labile and nonlabile) to TOC concentration increased from 31% to 40%. Postburn cultivation also resulted in reduction of TOC as well as considerable variation in the proportion of different SOC pools to TOC concentration. Among the different pools of SOC, the very labile C pool was most sensitive to land-use change induced by shifting cultivation (phytomass burning and postburn cultivation). The labile SOC pools can act as a sensitive indicator for devising suitable location specific management practices for restoration of soil health through SOC dynamics in degraded jhum lands in hilly ecosystems.

scholarly journals Understanding the effect of shifting cultivation practice (slash-burn-cultivation-abandonment) on soil physicochemical properties in the North-eastern Himalayan region

2021 ◽  
pp. 243
Author(s):  
Gaurav Mishra ◽  
Krishna Giri ◽  
Abhishek Jangir ◽  
Duraisamy Vasu ◽  
Jesús Rodrigo-Comino
Keyword(s):  
Soil Quality ◽  
Shifting Cultivation ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Himalayan Region ◽  
Available Phosphorus ◽  
Multivariate Techniques ◽  
Available Nitrogen ◽  
The North ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Eastern Himalayan Region

Shifting cultivation (jhum cultivation), a common practice of converting forest land into agricultural land by slash and burn is threatening the ecosystem. This study assesses the effect of shifting cultivation cycles on soil quality in the North-eastern Himalayan region using a minimum of soil properties. To achieve this goal, a soil quality index (SQI) approach and multivariate techniques were used for surface (0-30 cm) and subsurface (30-70 cm) layers of soils in the forest, jhum land, and jhum fallow areas. The highest variability among land uses was found for clay content, SOC (soil organic carbon), exchangeable Mg and K, CEC (cation exchange capacity), and the Ca/Mg relationship. On the contrary, the lowest variation was recorded in bulk density (BD), porosity, and pH. The results of the principal component analysis (PCA) show BD, soil texture, available nitrogen (Nav), available phosphorus (Pav), available potassium (Kav), calcium (Ca) and sodium (Na) as the major indicators of soil quality. The study indicated that surface layers of forest soils have a lower soil quality when compared to jhum lands. Although jhum lands show a better soil quality compared to forests, their continued cultivation without any fertilisation and subsequent depletion of the soil nutrients can cause a degradation of soil quality as observed in jhum fallow lands. The use of these selected indicators for soil quality assessment was useful in terms of saving time and costs.

scholarly journals Improvement of a Yairipok Chujak Maize Landrace from North Eastern Himalayan Region for β-Carotene Content through Molecular Marker-Assisted Backcross Breeding

Genes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 762
Author(s):  
Maqbool Qutub ◽  
Sarankumar Chandran ◽  
Krishnakumar Rathinavel ◽  
Vellaikumar Sampathrajan ◽  
Ravikesavan Rajasekaran ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Agronomic Traits ◽  
Himalayan Region ◽  
Recurrent Parent ◽  
Genetic Stock ◽  
Carotene Content ◽  
Maize Landrace ◽  
The North ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Eastern Himalayan Region ◽  
Β Carotene

In the North Eastern Himalayan region (NEHR) of India, maize is an important food crop. The local people cultivate the maize landraces and consume them as food. However, these landraces are deficient in β-carotene content. Thus, we aimed to incorporate the crtRB1 gene from UMI285β+ into the genetic background of the NEHR maize landrace, Yairipok Chujak (CAUM66), and thereby enhance the β-carotene content through marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC). In this regard, we backcrossed and screened BC1F1 and BC2F1 plants possessing the heterozygous allele for crtRB1 and then screened with 106 polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The plants having maximum recurrent parent genome recovery (RPGR) were selected in each generation and selfed to produce BC2F2 seeds. In the BC2F2 generation, four plants (CAUM66-54-9-12-2, CAUM66-54-9-12-11, CAUM66-54-9-12-13, and CAUM66-54-9-12-24) having homozygous crtRB1-favorable allele with maximum RPGR (86.74–90.16%) were selected and advanced to BC2F3. The four selected plants were selfed to produce BC2F3 and then evaluated for agronomic traits and β-carotene content. The agronomic performance of the four lines was similar (78.83–99.44%) to that of the recurrent parent, and β-carotene content (7.541–8.711 μg/g) was on par with the donor parent. Our study is the first to improve the β-carotene content in NEHR maize landrace through MABC. The newly developed lines could serve as potential resources to further develop nutrition-rich maize lines and could provide genetic stock for use in breeding programs.

scholarly journals Development of mobile phone based agro-advisory system through ICT mediated extension approach in North-eastern himalayan region of India

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1808-1814
Author(s):  
Biswajit Lahiri ◽  
Swapnali Borah ◽  
Natasha R. Marak ◽  
Thiruchirapalli Sudarshan Anurag
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Fishery Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Interactive Voice Response ◽  
Himalayan Region ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
Advisory System ◽  
Hilly Region ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Eastern Himalayan Region

To achieve gainful development in agriculture to ensure food security in the north-eastern Himalayan region of India, an initiative was taken to develop mobile phone based agro-advisory system with the objective to empower the farmers by providing right information at right time through Information and Communication Technology mediated extension approach. 2000 farmers and farm women were selected as beneficiaries through snowball sampling method based on certain criteria. The major features of the system to deliver the farm advices (Pull Based) and information services (Push Based) through toll free Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), Smart Phone Application, Mobile phone and Web based agriculture advisory system. It was found that on an average almost 200 advisories were provided every month, which even shoot up to almost 300 calls per month in the peak Kharif seasons as bulk of the advisories were provided during the months of May to November as most number of calls from the farmers came during the period. Majority of the advisories were provided on fishery management practices (17.32%), source of seed (9.95%), livestock management (9.18%), disease and pest management of crops (8.75%), training information (9.35%), rural development schemes (7.76%) etc. Moreover, the inclusion of need based training component and convergence with different extension functionaries helped to develop an ICT based Stakeholder Interface (Experts-Line Departments-Agripreneurs-Farmers) in the field of agriculture in the region. This alternate extension system also helped to develop better rapport with the farmers and can be replicated in other hilly region of the world.

Soil quality change 50 years after forestland conversion to tea farming

Soil Research ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
pp. 509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azadeh Gholoubi ◽  
Hojat Emami ◽  
Amin Alizadeh
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Organic Carbon ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Soil Quality ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Limiting Factor ◽  
Soil Productivity ◽  
Northern Iran ◽  
Effects Of Land Use

Land-use change has been shown to affect soil quality and may lead to soil degradation. The effects of land-use change from natural forest to tea farming on soil properties and quality were studied within Guilan Province of northern Iran. Thirty-six soil samples (0–30 cm) were randomly collected from six sites with three replications at each site. The soil quality of forest and tea farms was determined using the cumulative rating (CR) index and the Cornell Comprehensive Assessment of Soil Health (CASH) scoring function. Effects of land-use change on soil quality or health were significant (P < 0.01) using both methods. Both methods for all regions (forest and tea fields) showed that forest land-use was more sustainable based on lower CR (lower limitation to crop production) and higher CASH scores (higher soil productivity and quality) than tea farm soils. Both methods were also negatively correlated with each other. Despite pH being a limiting factor for soil quality, it was not influenced by land-use change in most locations because the studied soils were acidic. However, organic carbon was the most important soil quality indicator, which was significantly correlated with soil physical, chemical and biological (respiration rate) properties. Therefore, land-use management practices that are continuously cultivated should include increases in organic carbon.

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