Red ferruginous soils of tropical Indian environments: A review of the pedogenic processes and its implications for edaphology

    Pal, D K and Wani, S P and Sahrawat, K L and Srivastava, P (2014) Red ferruginous soils of tropical Indian environments: A review of the pedogenic processes and its implications for edaphology. CATENA, 121. pp. 260-278. ISSN 0341-8162

    [img] PDF - Published Version
    Restricted to ICRISAT users only
    Download (1MB) | Request a copy

    Abstract

    Red ferruginous (RF) soils of tropical Indian environments belong to Entisols, Inceptisols, Alfisols, Mollisols and Ultisols soil orders. The occurrence of Ultisols alongside acidic Alfisols and Mollisols in both zeolitic and non-zeolitic parent materials in humid tropical (HT) climatic environments, indicates that the soil diversity in India is large. These soils are not confined to a single production system and generally maintain a positive organic carbon (OC) balance without adding significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. This review presents a synthesis of literature on the recent developments on the pedology of RF soils, including their physical, chemical, biological, mineralogical and micro-morphological properties, and their degradation status. It also addresses the changes in soil properties in semi-arid tropical (SAT) areas, created by climate shift during the Holocene. This knowledge contributed to our understanding as to how the parent material composition influences the formation of Alfisols, Mollisols and Ultisols in weathering environments of HT climate; and also as to how the relict Alfisols of SAT areas are polygenetic. The state-of-the-art information developed through the extensive work on such soils has helped establish an organic link between pedogenetic processes and bulk soil properties, and has provided an insight of many pedological and edaphological issues related to Alfisols, Mollisols and Ultisols mainly of HT climate. The synthesis has helped us to understand as to why the formation of Oxisols from Ultisols is an improbable genetic pathway in tropical environment of India and elsewhere in the world. There is a strong need to modify the mineralogy class of highly weathered RF soils. We hope this review will help to dispel some of the myths on the formation of tropical soils and their low fertility by putting in context their characteristics and capacity to be productive.

    Item Type: Article
    Divisions: RP-Resilient Dryland Systems
    CRP: CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems
    Uncontrolled Keywords: Tropical soils; Alfisols; Mollisols; Ultisols; Pedology; Edaphology
    Subjects: Others > Soil Science
    Depositing User: Mr Siva Shankar
    Date Deposited: 18 Jun 2014 03:10
    Last Modified: 29 Sep 2014 09:22
    URI: http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/8129
    Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2014.05.023
    Projects: UNSPECIFIED
    Funders: UNSPECIFIED
    Acknowledgement: We thank several researchers especially those in the National Bureau of Soil Survey and LandUse Planning (NBSS&LUP) (ICAR),Nagpur, India, whose studies helped us with this review. Useful discussions with Drs. D. C. Nayak, T. K. Sen, P. Chandran, K.M. Nair and T. Bhattacharyya, Principal Scientists of NBSS&LUP helped improve the quality of this paper. We also appreciate suggestions and comments from the editor and also two anonymous reviewers,which greatly improved the quality of the manuscript.
    Links:
    View Statistics

    Actions (login required)

    View Item View Item
    OAR@ICRISAT is powered by EPrints 3 which is developed by the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. More information and software credits.