Continuous cropping and removal of crop residues from on lands.without adequate investment for soil quality has led to land degradation like soil erosion, loss of organic matter etc. to critical limits in the semi-arid regions where soils are naturally deficit in organic matter. Itis hypothesized that conservation agriculture (CA), which consists of zero / minimum tillage, crop residue retention / growing cover crops and adoption of suitable cropping systems, leads to reversal of process of land degradation when practiced continuously through significant reduction in runoff and soil loss (Castro et al., 1991) as well as improvement in soil physical, chemical and biological properties (Lal,2010). The major constraints to the use of CA in these regions include insufficient amounts of residues and degraded
Publish Year: 2012
