Geospatial Land Evaluation of Medinapur Sub-watershed for Crop Suitability and Sustainable Crop Plan

Abstract

A study was conducted to reveal the land capability and its suitability to crops in the semi-arid region of North-Eastern Karnataka state, India. Alternate crop plan was proposed with suitable interventions at soil phase level, based on the prevailing climatic regimes and soil-land limitations. Cadastral parcels of Medinapur sub-watershed overlaid on IRS-P6 LISS-IV merged Cartosat-1 satellite imagery was used for interpreting soil units. Soil profiles and morphological studies were made to classify entire sub-watershed (covering 4890.46 ha) into ten soil series and these soil series, further classified into 23 soil phase/management units. The results revealed that major area of 1163 ha (23.79%) covers the soil phase unit “KMLmC2” with deep (100-150 cm) clay textured, gently sloping (3-5 %) and moderately eroded (e2) lands. Two land capability classes (IIIes and IVes) were found in the study area with topography, soil erosion, texture, drainage and soil fertility as major limitation factors. Red gram (59.64%) and Sorghum (18.86%) covering maximum area in the sub watershed were assessed for crop suitability to land. To estimate the significance of crop suitability criteria to land, linear regression analysis was performed with assigned rank values of independent variables. Suitability of these crops was found that the 77.84 % of land was moderately suitable (S2) to redgram with limitations of rooting condition, erosion and topography, only depth showed significant contribution to redgram suitability with R2 = 0.744. Sorghum was highly suitable (S1) to 21.12 % of land and soil depth and pH were significantly contributing to suitability of sorghum with R2 = 0.746. The estimation of criteria for land suitability to Sorghum and Redgram was significant at 5 per cent level. In common soil depth resulted as major contributing factor in deciding land suitability to crops.