Abstract
SUMMARY A field experiment was conducted on skeletally degraded forest land in a semi-arid region of southern India to study the effect of varying levels of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers and water harvesting on the early growth and establishment of Eucalyptus tereticornis. The application of either phosphorus (as phosphate) or water harvesting increased plant survival rate, tree height, above-ground biomass and root biomass. Compared with the control, the combined application of phosphorus (10 kg P2O5 ha-1) and water harvesting increased tree height by 60% to 205 cm, above-ground biomass by 367% to 14.75 quintals (100 kg) ha-1, and root biomass by 565% to 4.39 quintals ha-1. Survival and growth of eucalyptus was adversely affected by nitrogen application alone (preplanting) in such a dry zone where for the greater part of the year the soil moisture content remained below 3.5 per cent in the 75 cm profile.
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