Strategies of increasing crop production and productivity in problem soils

Problem soils are those which owing to land or soil characteristics cannot be economically used for cultivation of crops without adopting proper management strategies. More than 50 per cent of 143 m ha-1 (net cultivated area) falls in the category of problems soils. More than 90 per cent of the land in the north eastern states alone is affected by soil acidity of varying degrees which have restricted the crop choice in more than 70 per cent of gross cropped area in this region to cereals particularly the rice. The amelioration of 25 million hectares promises additional 25 million tones of food grains. Besides, the fertilizer use as well its efficiency is also poor due to unfavorable pH conditions. The soil degradation due to salinity and alkalinity problems had affected significant chunk of fertile tracts, covering an area of about 67.27 lac hectares. The emphasis should therefore be given to solve these soil problems by adopting different management strategies like addition of different amendments, choice of crop, irrigation and drainage management for increasing the production as well as productivity on sustainable basis.