Assessment of Land Suitability of Bilalgodu Micro-Watershed, Chikkamagaluru District, Karnataka for Optimal Agriculture Use Planning.

Abstract

Detailed soil resource inventorization was carried out at 1:7,920 scale in Bilalgodu micro-watershed, Mudigere taluk, Chikkamagaluru district with an objective to assess the land suitability for various crops in the watershed. The soils of Bilalgodu micro-watershed are characterised and classified into 5 soil series comprising of 30 mapping units. The soil site characteristics and climatic factors were evaluated for its suitability for major existing crops of the location viz., coffee, arecanut, coconut and rice. Nearly 88 % soils of the micro-watershed are highly suitable for coffee cultivation and remaining 12 % are moderately suitable with gravelliness limitations (35-60%). Coconut is moderately suitable for 95 % area of micro-watershed with the constraints of erosion and gravelliness. Though arecanut crop is occupying more cultivated area, the suitability is only marginal due to the limitations of slope and erosion. In lowland soil (S5 series), rice is the predominantly cultivated field crop in the watershed which is moderately suitable (8 % TGA). Rice is not suitable (N) for other soils except lowland soils mainly because of topography limitation (l). Overall, Coffee is the highly suitable crop for Bilalgodu micro-watershed representing Malnad region of Chikkamagaluru district, Karnataka.