Soil and Crop management for Organic Carbon Sequestration

Soil,despite being the most basic of all natural resources is severely neglected these days.Quality of soil is determined much by it's organic matter content. Carbon Sequestration is a management strategy which maintains organic matter in soils,at the same time prevents the loss of Carbon as Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon Sequestration practices can therefore enrich soil quality and can also give a negative feed back to global warming. Residue producing cropping systems,recycling of crop residues to soil,reduction in tillage etc favours Carbon Sequestration in soils and were experimented in the present study.Coconut-Pineapple cropping system which generated pineapple residue with high lignin content could well improve the organic matter and organic carbon status of soil and thus could bring overall improvement in soil properties. Surface mulching of crop residues and reduction in tillage practices could also sequester more of organic matter in soil. Besides, the coconut- pineapple cropping system was more economical compared to other systems.

Autorentext

Sudha.B has obtained her Ph.D in Agronomy from Kerala Agricultural University in 2007 with CSIR Senior Research Fellowship.She is working as Assistant Professor at KAU and has more than 50 publications.Annamma George(Ph.D Agronomy)is working as Professor and Head,Coconut Research Station, KAU,has 35 years of research experience,30 research papers.