Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper


Vol 20, Issue 2, 2014

Page Number: 685-688

PHYSICO-CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF SELECTED SURFACE SOILS OF SARVAR VILLAGE OF DANGS DISTRICT - A CASE STUDY

R.D. Shinde, Amaresh Das, S.T. Shirgire and G.K. Gaikwad

Abstract

The “Sarvar” village of Dangs district in South Gujarat is situated at 20o50’55’’ N and 73o36’55’’ E. Geologically, the village comes under trappean basalts with litho-units Basalt which is hard in nature. 40 surface soil samples were collected from farmers’ field to assess general fertility status. The results obtained from field survey revealed that texture of surface soils varied from gravelly loam or gravelly clay loam. The surface soil samples of the village revealed that pH varied from 4.78 to 7.04 i.e. from very strongly acid to neutral with a mean of 5.98, EC varied from 0.02 to 0.183 dS m-1 (low) with a mean of 0.078 dSm-1, organic carbon ranged from 0.16 to 2.06 g kg-1 (low to medium) with a mean of 1.11 g kg-1, K2O varied from 339 to 894 kg ha- 1 (high) with a mean value of 594 and P2O5 ranged from 14 to 65 kg ha-1 (low to high) with a mean of 46 kg ha-1. The results obtained from field survey revealed that texture of surface soils varied from gravelly loam or gravelly clay loam. Village land was distributed at varying slope gradient i.e. from 0-1% (nearly flat land) to 25-35% (steep sloping land), of which major land belong to between moderately sloping land and steep sloping land. The depth of soil varied widely i.e. from <7.5 (very very shallow) to >90 cm (deep). The erosion of village land varied widely. The class of erosion varied from e1 (slight/ sheet erosion) to e4 (very severe/ big gully).