MONITORING AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR SOIL FERTILITY AND LAND USE AT DIFFERENT SOIL SERIES UNDER MEGHNA ESTUARINE FLOOD PLAIN

Monitoring of land use, soil fertility and management practices has been conducted in Chandina Soil Series under Old Meghna Estuarine Flood Plain from 2012 to 2013 (a) to monitor the changes of physical and chemical properties of soils, (b) to determine the causes of declining of crop yield and (c) to evaluate the traditional soil management practices followed by farmers and thereby to suggest appropriate measures for soil management. The Meghna eastern piedmont was an important AEZ region covering more than 70% of Comilla district and two sites of two different soil catena have been selected for this purpose. Site-1 at Bagur and Site-2 at Ashra under Debidwar thana having soil series Chandina. The last eight years data reveals that cropping intensity of medium highland under site-1 and site-2 was 300%. The yields of various crops in two sites were often found to be less than the potential. Farmers of all sites used imbalanced fertilizer which was the major cause of yield reduction. Over aged seedlings were transplanted by farmers in all sites. There were no definite trends of variation in fertility status of the soils, while inherent N & K status was low in all soils and P status was generally high and S status was observed as very low to medium.