Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

VARIATION OF SOIL ORGANIC CARBON STOCKS UNDER DIFFERENT LAND USE SYSTEMS IN THE VALLEY ECOSYSTEMS OF KULLU DISTRICT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH

Bhalendra Singh Rajput, D.R. Bhardwaj, K.P. Dwivedi, S.N. Singh, R.K. Singh and Bijoya Mondal

Abstract

The study was carried out in the valley area of Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh. The seven land uses selected were : cereal-cereal, cereal-vegetable, vegetable-vegetable, orchard + cereal-cereal, orchard + cerealvegetable, orchard + vegetable-vegetable and pure orchard and four altitudinal gradients viz., 1000-1300 m, 1300-1600 m, 1600-1900 m and 1900-2200 m above sea level were selected. Soil physico- chemical property reveals that maximum bulk density (1.92 g cm-3 ) was recorded in the orchard +vegetable-vegetable land use system and least in orchard+ cereal-vegetable (1.20 g cm-3 ), respectively. Maximum soil organic carbon (0.85%) was found in the pure orchard and orchard +vegetable-vegetable (0.82%) and least in cereal-cereal land use system (0.72%), respectively. The soil organic carbon percent also enhanced significantly with the ascending altitudinal ranges. Orchard +vegetable-vegetable land use system displayed the maximum value of soil organic carbon stock (20.02 t ha-1 ) and least in cereal-cereal land use system (17.01 t ha-1), respectively. In the altitudinal range, the total soil organic carbon stock increased with increasing altitudinal range. Maximum soil organic carbon stock (0-40 cm layer) was recorded in orchard +vegetable-vegetable land use system (40.87 t ha-1), which was followed by orchard +cereal-vegetable (40.08 t ha-1) orchard +cereal-cereal (39.30 t ha-1), respectively.