Status of Sequestered Organic Carbon in the Soils under different Orchards in Uttarakhand State

A study was undertaken to estimate SOC pool in the soils under different orchards in all the thirteen districts of Uttarakhand state. Maximum SOC pool was estimated under apple (Pyrus malus) orchards (80.81 t ha⁻¹) followed by mango (Mangifera indica) (50.70 t ha⁻¹), citrus (Citrus spp.) (47.55 t ha⁻¹), litchi (Lichee chinensis) (44.93 t ha⁻¹) and the least was under guava (Psidium guava) (40.21 t ha⁻¹). Results of one way ANOVA indicates that SOC pool between the orchards were significantly different at 0.05 level. SOC pool under apple was significantly different from the SOC pool under mango, citrus, litchi and guava. Maximum SOC pool in horticulture land use was in the soils of Nainital (1.51 million tons) followed by Dehradun district (1.40 million tons), Almora (1.26 million tons). Over all, in Uttarakhand soils under horticulture land use have 10.75 million tones of SOC pool.