Mid-term effect of soil amendments on soil erosion, crop productivity and soil properties in fragile ecosystem of western India

Soil erosion is a significant impediment to sustainable crop production in semi-arid regions. Soil amendments are practical management tools for soil reclamation effects and nutrient conservation in degraded agroecosystems. The present study aimed to quantify the magnitude of runoff, soil and nutrient loss as affected by amendments such as gypsum, crop residue (CR), farmyard manure (FYM) in conjunction with recommended nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium (RNPK) under soybean crop (2016–2019) in rainfed conditions of Western India. Results illustrated highest runoff (174 mm), soil loss (4.61 Mg ha^-1) and nutrient loss (7.2: 0.84: 25.8 kg ha^-1 N: P: K) in control than other treatments. Lowest runoff and soil loss were recorded in Gypsum+CR+fertilizers (16 % and 2.10 Mg ha^-1) and Gypsum+CR+FYM+fertilizers (27.3 % and 2.15 Mg ha^-1) respectively. Nutrient loss from amendment applied treatments was low (25–30 % reduction), but nutrient loss from the control indicates long-term depletion of nutrients and organic carbon from soils. Gypsum with organic amendments (CR+FYM) significantly improved soybean yield by 30–40 % over control plots. Combined amendment treatments improved mean weight diameter and water stable aggregate by 1.75 and 1.93 times higher over control, significantly reducing runoff and soil loss. The results of our study demonstrated that use of gypsum with organic amendments and fertilizers is an economically feasible and environment friendly approach for resource poor farmers of semi-arid regions of Western India especially in degraded landscape.