Soil and Water

Quality Management

Activities on Quality Management of Soil and Water is being carried out in the Directorate of Natural Resource Management, Directorate of Crop Management and Water Technology Centre.  The soil sample test, water quality test and plant sample test are being conducted in the respective Directorate to provide farm specific agro advisory services to the farming community.  Currently the Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry has been functioning with Soil Test Crop Response (STCR) unit, Micro and Secondary Nutrients (MNS) unit, Long Term Fertilizer Experiments (LTFE) unit and 15N Laboratory, Soil Physics unit and Tamil Nadu Soil Reference Centre, Radio Isotopes (RIL) unit to take care of Soil and Water Quality analysis and management.

Conservation

Soil and water conservation measures are predominantly applied for the purposes to control runoff and thus prevent loss of soil by soil erosion, to reduce soil compaction; to maintain or to improve soil fertility; to conserve or drain water; to harvest (excess) water.  Preserving soil moisture is important means to maintain the necessary water for agricultural production, and also helps minimize irrigation needs of the crops. This is especially important in areas where rainwater and/or groundwater resources for irrigation are scarce or decreasing due to climate change or other causes

Monitoring

Soil and Water Resources are being monitored with advanced technologies and methods.  Recently Drone is being utilized for monitoring the water resources and analgising the soil types.  Department of Remote Sensing and GIS is responsible for monitoring the natural resources using remote sensing &GIS and drone technologies.  Farm ponds, irrigation water bodies, irrigation channels, flood prone areas, drought prone areas and soil moisture levels are being monitored and measured with help of the advanced techniques. 

Mitigation

Mitigation strategies for preventing soil erosion and water loss are being carried out in Directorate of Natural Resource Management, Directorate of Crop Management, Water Technology Centre and Soil and Water Conservation Departments.  Drought mitigation strategies, flood mitigation strategies, and soil erosion mitigation strategies related research programmes are being conducted in the respective  centre of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.

Pollution reduction

Research on Pollution reduction in Soil and Water is also being conducted in the university.  Technologies for remediating polluted soils and waters are recommended to the farmers for adoption.  Suitable crops and varieties are being recommended for problem soils and waters through innovative research programmes.  Eco friendly agricultural practices and organic agriculture technologies are also recommended to the farmers as part of the pollution reduction strategies in Agriculture. 

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