Land evaluation for groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) production in Pulivendula tehsil, Kadapa district, Andhra Pradesh, India

The land evaluation for enhancing ground nut (Arachis hypogaea L.) production in Pulivendula tehsil, Kadapa district was carried out as per FAO approach using soil map with 43 mapping units generated on 1: 25000 scale and GIS technology to build thematic maps of suitable land units for peanut production with agroeconomic analysis. The land suitability analysis showed that 42.08 per cent of total cropped area is moderately suitable over current area of 14.8 per cent. with limitation of salinity, rootingdepth, surface stoniness, gravellinessandsoil texture. Theeconomic evaluationfor each soil mapping unit showed that only Pulivendula series has recorded benefit cost ratio more than 2 but in others this ratio is less 1. Results of landuse analysis suggested that participatory and bottom-up approaches are needed to understand the problems and opportunities in household agricultural production in order to develop appropriate landuse plans.