Effect of different land use on soil physical properties of experimental farms of Nduat, Ayodhya

A field and laboratory studies were conducted to assess the physical properties of different land-use of the main experimental farms of N.D. University of Agriculture & Technology, Kumarganj, Faizabad (U.P.) covering about 72.0 hectares. The soils samples were collected under cropland use (CLU), plantation land use (PLU), forest land use (FLU), barren land use (BLU) and grassland use (GLU) from 76 georeferenced points. The sampling was done twice one in the month of July (kharif) and another in the month of January (Rabi). From the study, it was revealed that among different CLU, legume-based cropping system (LBCS) had the maximum saturated hydraulic conductivity (SHC) of 0.26 cm hr⁻¹. However, the lowest bulk density was observed in vegetable-based cropping system (VBCS) for both the season. Similarly, in plantation land use the Bael orchard had the highest SHC of 0.21 cm hr⁻¹ but the lowest bulk density was observed in mango orchard for both the seasons signifying the highest amount of litter fall as compared to other plantation type. In case of FLU the highest value for SHC was observed in Eucalyptus spp. forest (0.19 cm hr⁻¹) however in this case the bulk density values were comparable with each other. The barren and grass land use had the lowest SHC and highest bulk density values. The soil temperature under different land use decreased with increasing soil depth in May and increased with increasing depth in January. These soil properties were suited to plant for survival in large gap of temperature overall the year, i.e., about 10⁰C to 36⁰C.