Development of Technology for Afforestation of Sodic Soils. I - Leguminous Species

In order to develop technology for afforesting highly sodic wasteland soils, field experiment consisting of four soil management treatments with and without drainage channel on five species was laid out on sodic (p^H 9.7, conductivity 1.3 ds/m) Revar soils of Kurukshetra Forest Division in Haryana. The study brought out that best results could be obtained with treatment M₂, which consists of mixing original soil with 3 kg gypsum, 2 kg rice-husk, 50g urea (in three split doses), 50g single super phosphate, 25g muriate of potash, O.2g zinc sulphate and 5g BIIC. Amongst the species tried, P.chilensis was most promising followed by T.articulata and A.nilotica. P. pinnata survived but growth rate was very slow. A.lebbek was not found to be the suitable species for highly sodic soils. The observations are continuing.