Fodder Grass Strips for Soil Conservation and Soil Health

Abstract

To make rainfed agriculture an economically viable enterprise for improving the livelihood and welfare of the farming communities contributing around 40 percent of the total food production in India, it is vital to implement best management practices to keep soils healthy, conserve agronomic inputs, minimize environmental impacts, and produce adequate yields. Increases in the sudden downpour of rain invites a high amount of soil loss from agricultural fields, eroding the uppermost soil layer. Permanent fodder grass strips effectively trap sediments and check nutrient removal from soil on one hand and on other meet the green fodder demands of small ruminants. However, nutrients removed by erosion create a limitation on land productivity. It has been observed that grass systems are useful for the improvement of other soil properties (soil physical and biological properties, for example) related to soil erosion control, slope stabilization, and food production. Hence, this study brought out the impact of grass-strip-based cropping systems on the sustainability of rainfed farming. Fields with grass strips improved their soil quality from 0.39 to 0.52 over a four-year period. This concept of growing grasses on both sides of a field (in a one-meter strip) in areas of loamy fine sand to sandy loam textured soils improves soil health and significantly reduces runoff from cropped fields. A permanent belt of Brachiaria ruziziensis and Stylosanthes hamata in two meter widths was established at every fifteen meters across the direction of the slope and reduced soil loss by 65–70 percent. This mechanization of friendly technology provides sufficient green fodder for small ruminants. A castor–redgram rotation with fodder grass strips (especially Brachiaria ruziziensis) on the upper and lower sides of the slopes fetched better crop productivity, and thus the total returns increased from 137,022 rupees/ha to 178,689 rupees/ha. The use of grass strips is a low-cost measure for soil conservation, especially for slowing down the run-off from sudden downpours of high intensity. This study may aid researchers and managers in helping farmers with this low-cost and viable technology.

Keywords

• grass strip
• soil quality
• surface runoff