Soil Management for Sustainable Crop Production and Soil Health

Importance of soils to human well-being and cultural enrichment is glorified in the ancient Indian scriptures dating back to the drawn of civilization. In the developing countries like India, a large proportion of the land area shows clear evidence of advanced and continuing degradation seriously affecting the country’s productive resource base. As ecosystem consist of soil, plant, animal and human, an adverse impact on any of the component is likely to have various effects on the other component of system. Continuous adoption of conventional farming practices based on intensive tillage, especially when combined with crop residue burning or removal have exaggerated soil erosion losses and degraded the soil resource base steadily. Soil carbon changes of a crop production system are a very important aspect as it indicates whether a production system is a C restorative process or not. Hence, the need to protect our soil environment against degradation will necessarily involve the knowledge and the use of natural soil functions so as to ensure higher quality soils and better produce quality through the appropriate management of soils.