Soil informatics for agricultural land suitability assessment in Seoni district, Madhya Pradesh, India

The soil informatics for agromanagement at district level is a valuable tool for making environmentally suitable land use systems and assessing fertility constraints for crop production in tribal dominated Seoni district, Madhya Pradesh, India. The methodology combining soil survey with geographic information system and standard land evaluation procedures were adopted to evaluate suitability of soil units for locally suitable crops. The physiography - soil map with thirty soil mapping units (series association) was generated over fourteen distinct basaltic and granitic landforms through reconnaissance soil survey. The arability and suitability analysis showed that fifty six per cent of arable land is suitable for eleven land use zones. In arable lands, twenty four per cent of basaltic clay soils in northern plateaus were evaluated as suitable for citrus, sorghum and soybean cropping systems with fertility constraints of low available nitrogen , phosphorus and zinc while 15.3 per cent of granitic soils in southern zone for sorghum and cotton systems having limitations of stoniness, low water holding capacity, low status of available nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and zinc.