SOIL HYDRAULIC AND STRENGTH PARAMETERS AS INFLUENCED BY VARIOUS MECHANIZED RAINWATER CONSERVATION PRACTICES IN RAINFED GROUNDNUT CROPKishore Nalabolu, Praveen M., Rajasekhar P., Pallavi C. and Sruthi Vani A.Abstract In India, rain fed agriculture constitutes to 60% of the net cultivated area and accounts for nearly 44% of the National food basket. 54.6% of the total workforce is engaged in agricultural and allied sector activities (Census, 2011) and accounts for 17.8% of the countryâs Gross Value Added (GVA) for the year 2019-20. Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) is a low-cost, easy-to-use, environmentally friendly way to recover a large part of this lost water. In India, the rainfed agriculture constitutes 60% of the total net sown area and Andhra Pradesh constitutes nearly 57% net sown area under rainfed agriculture. Groundnut (Arachis hypogea) occupies nearly 28.3% of the cultivated area under oil seed crops in India and the area under groundnut in the Country is 5.40 Mha with a total production of 6.57 Million Tonnes (MT) and with the productivity of 910 kg ha-1. The area of groundnut crop in Andhra Pradesh is 7.47 Lakh ha whereas Ananthapuramu District occupied 6.71 Lakh ha. The study was carried out under different surface and subsurface rainwater conservation practices with the objective to study the soil hydraulic and strength parameters viz., soil moisture content in frequent intervals at 10 cm, 20 cm, 30 cm depth and bulk density, particle density and porosity at 20 cm depth. From the study, it was observed that, highest soil moisture content was observed in subsoiling at 1 m distance + broad bed and furrow system treatment at three different soil sampling depths of 10 cm, 20 cm and 30 cm as 25.40%, 31.20% and 27.50%, respectively at 40 Days After Sowing (DAS) and 29.74%, 34.71% and 22.38%, respectively at 80 Days After Sowing (DAS). The lowest bulk density and highest soil porosity were observed as 1.52 g cm-3 and 32.7% in subsoiling at 1 m distance + broad bed and furrow treatment than other practices. |