Hello farmers, we are back today with great information that is Crops suitable for black soil, black soil advantage, and disadvantages. The soil is one of our country’s important resources, as the fertile soil helps us grow many crops. It serves the needs of food not only within the country but in other parts of the world. Though it’s not the same everywhere on earth. A place’s soil types are chiefly determined by that place’s climate, landscape, and vegetation. Soil is dependent upon the time it is produced. Waiting for what? Let’s hope into the crop specifics that match the black soil.
Step by Step Guide on crops Suitable for Black Soil
Black soil is called black soil fire. This colored soil is black and it is made from the rocks of lava and rich in clay. Black soils are highly moisture-retentive, extremely compact, and tenacious when wet, being substantially compressed to create deep, large cracks on drying and self-plowing. Black soils get very high fertility credits. These are suitable for leguminous crops such as cotton, turning, and citrus fruits. Certain crops include maize, Jowar, millets, linseed, tobacco, safflower, sugar cane, vegetables, and so on.
Black soils are rich in calcium, potassium, and magnesium, but low in nitrogen. Sandy soil is low in nutrient content but helps grow trees like coconut, cashew, and casuarinas in high-rainfall areas.
As the name suggests, the black soil is dark and sticky with a clay-like quality. It holds well the moisture and becomes hard under dry conditions and sticky under wet conditions. The soil consists of less than 30 percent clay, wedge-shaped pedestrians, and cracks that regularly open and close. Black soil is usually used in areas with regular rain to raise millet, cotton, soybean, sorghum, and pigeon pea. Upon irrigation of the soil, black soil is used to cultivate other crops, such as sugar cane, maize, tobacco, and citrus. The soil may be used as a material for construction. If you are commercially growing crops, you need to learn about crops that are ideal for black soil.
Manure Preparation Methods
Black soils are dark with a very high content of clay, and they have a high capacity to retain moisture. They become very difficult to dry, and sticky when wash. Therefore they are hard to cultivate and to handle. These soils cover an area of approximately 74 million ha mostly in India’s central, western, and southern states. We are Fertile naturally. They are used for growing cotton, millets, soybean, sorghum, and pea pigeons, etc. under rainfed conditions. They can be used for a variety of other crops under irrigated conditions, which are sugar cane, wheat, tobacco, and citrus crops.
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Classification of Black Soil
There are two types of Black soil. They are;
Clayey Soil: The major parts of peninsular India are occupied. Thanks to finer constituents this soil is hard.
Loamy Soil: The silt changes from 30 to 40 percent in this soil.
Shallow Black Soil: The thickness is less than 30 cm, and the soil is used for Jower, maize, wheat, gram, and cotton cultivation. Shallow black soil occurs in the districts of Satpura (Madhya Pradesh), Bhandara, Nagpur, and Satara (Maharashtra), Bijapur, and Gulbarga (Karnataka).
Medium Black Soil: The thickness goes from 30 cm to 100 cm. This primarily occupies a larger area in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh.
Deep Black Soil: The thickness reaches a meter. The soil is fertile and used to grow cotton, sugarcane, rice, citrus fruits, vegetables, etc.
Major Soil Types of India
Alluvial Soils, Red Soil, and Alkaline Soil
Alluvial Soils: Alluvial Soils are formed due to silt deposited by the Indo-Gangetic-Brahmaputra river. Some Alluvial Soils are found in the Northern parts of Gujarat.
Marshy Soils: Marshy Soils are wetness soils and decayed organic matter on the surface.
Iron Oxide: Iron Oxide and lime vary within a wide range.
Desert Soil: These Soils occur in areas having more rainfall than the areas of Desert Soils.
Advantage of Black Soil Formation
- Agro-friendly contents make fertile these.
- These black soils are highly resistant to moisture and thus react well to irrigation.
- These soils are filled with all of the minerals: calcium carbonate, magnesium, potash, and lime.
- The iron-rich granular structure makes them wind- and water-resistant.
Disadvantages of Black Soil Formation
- The downside of black soil is cracking when it’s dry and swelling when it’s wet and making it hard to maintain unless it’s grown at good soil moisture. That will make it difficult to control the black dirt.
- After harvesting, optimal conditions for tillage occur immediately when the surface soil is still damp.
- Poor drainage system during flooding, and waterlogging.
- Black soil is low in fertility and poor in organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus available and zinc. The use of fertilizers and the effects of manure on increased crop yield.
Crops Suitable for Black Soil
Black soil derives its color from various salts and humus. Black soil contains a large quantity of clay but is also sandy in hillier regions and this soil contains small quantities of phosphorus but is low in nitrogen content. This soil form is used in corn, wheat, sugar cane, and cotton. It is further used for the cultivation of groundnut, millet, and oilseeds.
Black soil is ideally suited for growing cotton, sugar cane, tobacco, wheat, millets, and oilseed crops. Black soil is to be the best soil type for cotton cultivation. It is also suitable for the production of cereals, oilseeds, citrus fruits and vegetables, tobacco and sugar cane, in addition to cotton. The retentiveness to moisture makes them ideal for dry farming.
Due to their high fertility and moisture retentivity, the black soils are typically used to grow many important crops. Cotton, maize, jowar, linseed, Virginia tobacco, castor, sunflower, and millets are some of the major crops grown on the black soils. Where irrigation facilities are obtainable, rice and sugar cane are equally important. A large variety of fruits and vegetables are successfully cultivated on black soil.
Black Soil Texture
The texture of the soil depends on the proportion of sand, silt or clay which it contains. For example, a soil described as a silt loam will mostly contain silt but will also contain some smaller proportions of sand and clay. A close look at the soil will reveal that the mineral component is variable in its composition. The size, shape and chemical composition of soil particles vary. Some are so small that they are visible with a microscope. Surface provides a good result on soil quality and productivity. Generally, sandy soils are loose and friable to release. Sand allows for good drainage and aeration. Particles of clay play an important part in the fertility of soils. Normally, they are very fertile soils, in terms of plant nutrient content. Cultivation of loam soils and Silt loam soils is highly desirable.
Black Soil in India
Also known as regur and black cotton soils are the black soils because cotton is the most important crop grown on these soils. Geographically, the black soil is spread over 5.46 lakh sq km (i.e. 16.6 percent of the country’s total geographic area). The black soil color was a small proportion of titanic magnetite or even iron and black parent rock constituents. This contains 10% alumina, 9-10% iron oxide, and 6-8% lime and magnesium carbonate. Potash is low in phosphates, nitrogen, and humus variable (less than 0.5 percent).
Black soils are present in most areas of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu.
Indian black soils are commonly referred to as Black Cotton Soils and are graded as other orders into Vertisols and Vertic intergrades. Such soils swell over wetting and shrink over-drying, being highly difficult to work and manage.
Such soils mainly occur in the peninsular zone of India. As previously approximated from the soil reconnaissance survey, these soils cover approximately 70 M ha making up 21.4 percent of the country’s total geographic area. The latest estimate of the extent and intergrade of Vertisols suggests that the region under these soils is 51.3 M ha, of which the area under Vertisols is 26.62 M ha and the area under Vertic Entisols (Vertic) is about 0.20 M ha, Inceptisols (Vertic) is 23.76 M ha and Alfisols (Vertic) is 0.72 M ha.
These black soils are deep to shallow, dark-colored, with a unique structure dominated by specific clay mineralogy. Among the black soils, the deep black soils are typically calcareous, dark in color with a high content of clay, low in organic carbon, high CEC and high in shrink-swell potential due to the presence of a large amount of smectitic clay in the fine soil. Vertisols typically occupy lower topographic positions (toe slopes) and sometimes occur in comparatively higher positions with stable slopes mixed with shallow black soils. The climatic setting of these black soils ranges from arid to semi-arid to sub-humid to humid, characterized by hot and dry summer and mild winter interfered by a short summer monsoon rainfall period.
Many black soils are derived from two types of rocks, the Deccan and the Rajmahal pit, and the Tamil Nadu ferruginous gneisses and schists. The former is deep enough whilst the latter are generally shallow.
The black soil is basically a mature soil that was formed not by a specific type of rock, but by relief and climate. Black soil exists where the annual rainfall varies from 50 to 80 cm and the rainy days range from 30 to 50 cm. This black soil occurs in the western Deccan where the rainfall is about 100 cm and the number of rainy days is more than 50. And in some parts of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, the origin of black soils is ascribed to old lagoons where the rivers deposited the materials brought down from the lava-covered interior of the Peninsula.
Geographically, between 15Ć Ā° N to 25Ć Ā° N latitudes and 72Ć Ā° E to 82Ć Ā° E lengths, these soils are spread over 5.46 lakh sq km. This is the high-temperature region, and low rainfall as well. It is a group of soil from the dry and hot Peninsula regions.
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Characteristics of Black Soil
Black soils consist of volcanic rocks and lava-flows. It is concentrated mainly on the Deccan Lava Tract that includes parts of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu.
And typical black soil characteristics are swelling (wet period), and shrinking (dry period). Black soil is also known as soil that is self-plowing. Black soils are also called regur soils and black cotton soils since cotton are the essential crop grown on black soils
The black soil is moisture retentive. When wet in the rainy season it swells tightly and sticky. It is almost impossible to work on such soil under these conditions because the plow gets stuck in the mud.
Although the moisture evaporates in the hot dry season, the soil shrinks and is seamed with wide and deep cracks, sometimes 10 to 15 cm wide and up to 1 m deep. It allows the soil to oxygenate to adequate depths and the soil has exceptional fertility.
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- The black texture of clayey soil and are very fertile.
- Such black soils have a cloddish or sometimes friable texture.
- Black soil rich in carbonate calcium, magnesium, potash, and lime but poor in nitrogen and phosphorus.
- Highly moisture-retentive, this soil is extremely compact and tenacious when humid.
Black soil is contractible and at drying develops deep large cracks. - On the uplands, it is self-plowing, though comparatively less productive than on the lowlands.
- Black soil is rich in lime, iron, magnesium, and usually low in phosphorus, nitrogen, and organic matter.
- It is black, as it is formed by weathered rocks of lava.
- In most areas where it is located the black soil is extremely fertile.
The different categories of Black Soil
- Calcareous Basements
- Non-Calcareous Basements
- Associated with recent river terraces
- Deltaic and coastal alluvia
Also, different soil types that have;
- A well-structured, dark-colored surface horizon due to high-quality humus enrichment up to a depth of more than 40 cm ā mostly 60 to 80 cm;
- High base saturation (the basic cations Ca2 +, Mg2 +, and K+ occupy a high percentage of cation exchange capacity) and; also moderate to high organic matter content.
- Also, organic content is moderate to high.
The natural areas from which black soils grow are the summer-dry and freezing conditions encountered in the prairies and steppes. The soil’s black color is due in large part to the presence of titanic magnetite. And iron and aluminum compounds, hummus, and colloidally hydrated mixed iron and aluminum silicate compounds.
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