Abstract
BackgroundThe present study introduces an alternate tool of laboratory analysis named Soil Health Card (SHC) for soil quality monitoring and routine field observations by farmers.ResultsDifferent physicochemical and nutrient contents of soil, i.e. pH, electric conductivity, soil organic matter, organic carbon, total nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur and boron were assessed by laboratory analysis collected from the different fields of Noakhali district of Bangladesh. These parameters were scored according to the soil fertility standards according to Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council. Results found that, the soil quality of all the studied fields are medium category. Again, a SHC was prepared using soil structure, subsurface compaction, aggregate stability, status of ground cover, soil smell, soil pH, color, organic matter content, drainage capacity, diversity of micro-life, earthworm contents, infiltration rate, soil aeration, crop coverage and leaf color. The result of SHC is interestingly similar to the laboratory experiment results.ConclusionsAnalyzing these two methods it was found that, the SHC is truly representative, much convenient, precise, coast effective and easily understandable to the marginal farmers. However, SHC can be an alternative to farmer for sustainable farm management.
Highlights
The present study introduces an alternate tool of laboratory analysis named Soil Health Card (SHC) for soil quality monitoring and routine field observations by farmers
Laboratory analysis of soil is expensive, more time consuming and not convenient for marginal farmers so the present study aims to introduce an alternate method name SHC and its application for soil monitoring in agricultural lands using different indicators
The economy of Noakhali is depends on agriculture and they produce varieties of crops, namely local and hybrid rice, wheat, vegetables, spices, cash crops, pulses, betel leaves, peanuts, onion, oil seeds and others. 30% of the regional Gross Domestic Production (GDP) comes from agriculture with 45% of the population employed in the sector (BBS 2011)
Summary
Different physicochemical and nutrient contents of soil, i.e. pH, electric conductivity, soil organic matter, organic carbon, total nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur and boron were assessed by laboratory analysis collected from the different fields of Noakhali district of Bangladesh. These parameters were scored according to the soil fertility stand‐ ards according to Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council. A SHC was prepared using soil structure, subsurface compaction, aggregate stability, sta‐ tus of ground cover, soil smell, soil pH, color, organic matter content, drainage capacity, diversity of micro-life, earth‐ worm contents, infiltration rate, soil aeration, crop coverage and leaf color. The result of SHC is interestingly similar to the laboratory experiment results
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