Author
Listed:
- P. M. Govindakrishnan
- A. N. Ganeshamurthy
- N. K. Krishna Kumar
- F. Beggi
- S. Bhaskar
- J. C. Rana
Abstract
Soil health information is still not widely used in decision making in agriculture. One of the reasons is the lack of a simple and effective method for selection of soil health indicators that have direct relevance to management decisions. A framework for soil health indicators selection and developing location-specific management practices that improve soil health are presented. The framework involves selection of a minimum data set of soil health indicators based on ‘DUS(Soil)’ criteria. In this framework ‘D’ represents Distinctness (indicators representing distinct functional soil processes), ‘U’ represents Utility (amenability for amelioration of the status of the indicator or altering its impact through management practices) and ‘S’ represents Simplicity (amenability for measurement in the field/small laboratories using simple protocols). This study also outlines a method for developing management guidelines for farmers based on the status of the selected soil health indicators. This involved classifying the status of each of the indicators into three classes. Thereafter, taking cognizance of the agroecological context, suitable field management schedules were developed for each class of the indicators, based on literature and local expert knowledge. The use of this framework was demonstrated by developing management guidelines for a coarse textured soil with optimum pH, low soil carbon, poor in water stable aggregates (highly slaking), optimum porosity and poor in soil macro fauna in Mandla district, Madhya Pradesh, India. The study showed that the framework is flexible, generic as well as simple and is useful to develop site-specific management guidelines logically, to overcome the soil quality constraints.
Suggested Citation
P. M. Govindakrishnan & A. N. Ganeshamurthy & N. K. Krishna Kumar & F. Beggi & S. Bhaskar & J. C. Rana, 2024.
"DUS(Soil)—A Framework for Developing a Minimum Data Set of Soil Health Indicators and Management Guidelines for Farmers,"
Journal of Agricultural Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 14(1), pages 1-41, April.
Handle:
RePEc:ibn:jasjnl:v:14:y:2024:i:1:p:41
Download full text from publisher
More about this item
JEL classification:
- R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
- Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General
Statistics
Access and download statistics
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ibn:jasjnl:v:14:y:2024:i:1:p:41. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Canadian Center of Science and Education (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.html .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.