BACKGROUND

The Research Centre of Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute at Bellary was established in October 1954 to conduct research on problems related to soil and water conservation on deep black soils of low rainfall region, to extend the results of research to farmers and to impart training in soil and water conservation to the officers/assistants sponsored by the State and Central Governments. The results of research from the Centre are applicable to the deep black soil/ vertisols and its’ associated soils areas with low rainfall covering Bellary, Chitradurga, Raichur, Koppal, Gadag and Bijapur districts of Karnataka State; Kurnool, Cuddapah, Mehboobnagar and Anantapur districts of Andhra Pradesh and Ahmednagar and Solapur districts of Maharashtra State.

This Research Centre is mainly concerned with soil and water conservation in deep black soils.

The rainfall in the area is very low and amounts to only 500 mm per annum. Success of agricultural crops mainly depends upon adequate conservation of soil water. The medium and deep black soils are problem soils from the point of soil and water conservation due to inherent adverse physical properties coupled with hostile climatic conditions. Since the inception of this Centre, soil conservation measures/practices such as contour cultivation, strip cropping, contour bunding, terracing with rainwater harvesting and recycling, gully plugging etc. have been evaluated/tested for their efficacy in conserving soil and rainwater and for enhancing agricultural production on a sustained basis. Of late, the Centre is also addressing the issues related to red soil (alfisols) region of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh through the watershed programme. MANDATE

� To undertake research on soil erosion problems of the region by collecting and analysing data on climate, soil and plant in relation to runoff and erosion losses.

� To evolve suitable agronomic and mechanical measures for effective conservation of soil moisture and field experimentation and demonstrate the efficacy of soil and water conservation methods to the farmers.

� To investigate physical, chemical and micro-biological aspects of black soils with a view to increase the structural stability and moisture retentive capacity.

� To impart specialized training in soil and water conservation to officer/assistant trainees from different States.

MAN POWER

The available manpower of the Research Centre is as follows:

Scientific Technical Administration Supporting Total

8 16 8 28 60

The scientific and technical staff is from various disciplines like Engineering, Soil Science, Agronomy, Horticulture, Economics and Extension from looking after diverse kinds of responsibilities related to research, training and extension.

Central Soil & Water Conservation Research & Training Institute,

Research Centre, Bellary-583104 (Karnataka)

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INFRASTRUCTURE

For conducting research, demonstration and training this Centre has good facilities of laboratories and an experimental research farm. It organizes regular training programmes and short courses as per specific demands of the States, NGOs and other Organizations from time to time. Over the last 50 years the Research Centre has built up excellent and modern facilities for conducting research, training and consultancy services in the field of soil and water conservation and watershed management.

Soil Laboratory

For the routine analysis of soil, water and plant samples the Centre has a laboratory equipped with several modern and scientific instruments. The equipments like Kjeltak nitrogen analyzer, Ion meter, Spectrophotometer, Flame meter, Leaf area meter, Autoclave, Incubator, Laminar airflow, Yoder type wet sieving apparatus, Neutron moisture probe, Atomic absorption spectrophotometer, etc. are available for supporting research and training in the area of soil and water conservation, land degradation and soil quality assessment. Soil and runoff samples from the field plots and watersheds are being analysed for estimation of soil and nutrient losses and other parameters.

Computer & Communication Cell

The Centre is equipped with 17 no. of desktop computers, one server and an workstation; all of which are connected by LAN and Internet for the purpose of research and data analysis. It is also equipped with Geographic Information System (Arc View 3.1 & Geomedia) and Global Positioning System (GPS). Other accessories include: A-3 and A-4 scanners, A0 plotter, Laser and DeskJet printers, etc. In addition, two laptop computers also exist to support demonstration and extension activities.

The Centre is also equipped with different Audio-visual aids like Slide projector, Overhead projector, LCD projector, Opaque projector, Video camera and Digital camera for imparting training and taking up extension activities.

Library

The Centre has its own library to cater to the needs of Scientists, NGOs, Students, Government Departments and other professionals, engaged in soil and water conservation as well as watershed programme. The summary of books and journals subscribed to the Centre are given as below:

Cartography & Survey Laboratory

The Centre has full-fledged cartography cell with modern instruments to meet the requirements of the different research projects, consultancy services and training programmes.

Training/accommodation facilities

A trainee's hostel with 15 fully furnished double-bedded rooms (356.50 sq.m. area) and one guest house with attached bathrooms facilities are available for accommodating trainees and other visitors. In addition, one class room and one conference hall with good infrastructure facilities are available for conducting classes and specialized training programmes. A generator is available for maintaining electricity supply during load shedding hours.

Books/ Bulletins/ Reports 2044

Bound Journals 1412

Maps/ Charts 20

Journals being subscribed 27

CDs on different themes of NRM 16

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Research Farm

The Centre has a Research farm of 86.70 ha situated at Sreedharagadda, Somasamudram P.O., Bellary district (13 km away from the Centre) with well-equipped infrastructure facilities for conducting the field experiments, demonstration of technology and micro-watershed studies. Various facilities of the farm include workshop, tractor, power tiller and farm equipments. Indigenously made state of the art experimental facilities like tilting hydraulic flume and rainfall simulator are available at the farm for basic hydrological studies under variable slope condition. To measure evapotranspiration Lysimeter are installed at the Research farm.

The Centre is also equipped with various hydrological devices like Automatic stage level recorders, H-Flumes, Coshocton silt samplers, Multi-slot devisors, Ramser’s sampler and a number of self recording gauging stations (runoff plot, field plots, micro-watershed and small watersheds) for measuring resource losses (runoff, soil loss and nutrient losses) in different situations in the region on watershed basis.

Hydro-meteorological stations

A fully equipped Meteorological Station with all the equipments/ instruments including automatic weather station is situated at the Research farm. The Indian Meteorological Department, Pune has recognized this Centre as an authorized Station for collection of weather data.

Exhibition hall/Museum

The exhibition hall covers an area of 133 sq. m, which is situated at the Research farm. The research findings, achievements, activities of this Centre are displayed in the form of photographs, data tables and graphs/maps on the panels. Distinguished dignitaries, Scientists, farmers, students etc., are visiting the museum regularly.

Buildings

The Centre includes main office campus with office building, one conference hall and one class room, laboratory, library, residential quarters, garage & scooter shed and training hostel with a built up area of 9148 sq.m. Research Farm has its’ own campus with office, museum, godown, workshops and residential quarters.

RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENTS

� Graded bunding in vertisols with a combination of 0.75 m vertical interval and 0.6m2 cross-sectional area

of the bund gave maximum sorghum grain yield (29.9 q ha-1

) as compared to control (20.4 q ha-1

).

� Sunflower in rotation with sorghum or as intercrop reduced runoff from 51 mm to 30 mm. Sunflower was more remunerative than groundnut in semi-arid and black soil region.

� Among various grass barriers, minimum runoff was produced by Dicanthium annulatum (26.3 mm) followed by Cymbopogon martinii (30.4 mm) and Vetivera zizanioides (48.6 mm) as compared to 173.9 mm in control. The minimum soil loss of 145.6 kg ha

-

1yr

-1 was also observed in Dicanthium annulatum treatment.

� Planting of bio-fence species like Agave sisilena, Euphorbia tirucalli, Glyricidia maculata, Cassia siamea, Ipomea cornea, Jatropha curcas, etc. on the ridge in two staggered rows with a spacing of 50x50 cm on boundaries of cultivated fields check the human and animal encroachment and protect the crops, reduces runoff (5.20 mm) and soil loss (259.13 kg ha

-

1), improves soil moisture and soil fertility, provides additional

income and stabilizes the field bunds.

� The soil conservation measures in a watershed at Chinnatekur in Kurnool district of A.P. increased ground water levels by 0.5 to 1 m. Consequently, the command area of 47 open wells in the watershed increased by 173% as compared to pre-treatment period. The number of open wells increased from 47 during the pre-project period to 120.

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� Water harvesting through dug-out farm pond proved beneficial in semi-arid black soil region to mitigate the problem of water scarcity during long dry spells in crop season. One dug-out pond in every 10 ha catchments area is required to stabilized crop production as recommended by CSWCRTI, Research Centre, Bellary.

� Adoption of integrated watershed management in an agricultural watershed at G.R.Halli reduced runoff from 20-30% to 1-2% and soil loss from 5-10 to 1.0 t ha

-1yr

-1.

� Compartmental bunds in medium to deep black soils are � formed after preliminary tillage operations to conserve rainwater in-situ, which increases soil profile

water and nutrient content for better crop growth and productivity (5-20%).

� Resource conservation and adoption of suitable crops and cropping systems in the black and red soils can increase the productivity on the sustainable basis in semi - arid tropics of South India. Graded bunding in the Chinnatekur watershed (Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh) increased the groundnut and sunflower yield by 15 and 16% over control. Further, layout of farmers’ fields with compartmental bunding in between the graded bunds increased the groundnut and sunflower yields by 45% with conservation of rainwater and top fertile soil. Due to resource conservation in the black soils of Joladarasi watershed the yields of coriander and safflower increased by 14 and 12%, respectively, in the mixed cropping and by 14 and 17% in the intercropping as compared to outside the watershed (average of 8 years). In Gadehothur watershed improved cultivars of groundnut (K-134) and Castor (48-1) with recommended fertilizer over traditional cultivars with farming practices increased the net returns by Rs.2617 and Rs.4058 per ha, respectively.

� In deep black soils (vertisols) of the low rainfall areas of semi-arid

� region, conservation ditching (inverted contour bund like structure) proved beneficial overcoming the limitation of contour bund and graded bund (water stagnation and draining out the excess rainwater too far out of the reach of the small farmers). Conservation ditching technique has shown great promise to be an effective technique for conservation of water resources at field level and helps to realize the potential productivity of semi-arid black soil region.

CONTRACT RESEARCH/ CONSULTANCIES

This Centre has offered several consultancies to different agencies/projects and these includes:

� Integrated participatory watershed development planning and management

� Monitoring and impact evaluation of watershed programme

� Soil and water conservation programme

� Planning of land development-cum-water resource development

� Integrated wasteland and drought prone area development

� Hydrological monitoring, water harvesting and drainage line treatment

� Environmental rehabilitation of degraded lands

� Watershed hydrology and water resources development

� Impact assessment of natural resource conservation programme

The scientific and technical staff of the Centre with their wide exposure and expertise can take

up capacity building/ training, contract research and consultancy work relating to Natural Resource

Management, Drought Management, Watershed Management, etc.

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Recipients/clients

� KAWAD in Karnataka � RVP in Karnataka � Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited � Indo-German Watershed Development Project (IGWDP) � Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihood Project (APRLP), Government of Andhra Pradesh � Andhra Pradesh Community Forestry Management (APCFM) Project, Government of Andhra

Pradesh � National Watershed Development Programmes for Rainfed Areas (NWDPRA), Ministry of

Agriculture, Government of India.

EXTENSION & DEMONSTRATION ACTIVITIES

The Centre is also engaged in different extension and demonstration activities for better propagation and adoption of the technologies and creating awareness among the rainfed farmers on the conservation technologies with the following activities: (i) Field demonstration (dissemination of improved production technologies through participatory approach) (ii) Farmers day and Field day (iii) National Land Resources Conservation Week (iv) National Science Day (v) Stakeholders workshop (vi) Seed production activities, etc.

COLLABORATION/LINKAGES

The Centre during the period is associated with different National, International Organizations, State Agricultural Universities and Developmental Agencies in conducting various research programmes and in transferring the technologies developed into the farm situation. List of organizations

Name of the organization Purpose

NBSS&LUP, Bangalore To prepare soil erosion maps of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh

CRIDA, Hyderabad Collaborative research in the field of soil and water conservation and crop production relating to dryland agriculture

NRC on Sorghum, Sholapur Collaborative research in evaluating sorghum genotypes suitable for rabi seasons in the region

MYRADA (NGO) Training of man power for undertaking conservation programmes

RDT (NGO) Training and Transfer of Technology on watershed basis

ICRISAT, Hyderabad Knowledge interaction on resource conservation

DPAP, Kurnool & DRDA, Anantapur Training and Transfer of Technology on watershed basis

UAS, Dharwad & UAS, Bangalore Watershed management

Department of Agriculture, Forest & Watershed of Government of Karnataka & Government of Andhra Pradesh

Resource conservation and crop productivity in rainfed areas; Consultancy and evaluation studies and human resource development

Department of Mines, Government of India

Reclamation of mined degraded area

Indian Meteorological Department, Pune To generate Agromet database

Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India

Consultancy and evaluation studies

For further information please contact:

Head, Central Soil & Water Conservation Research & Training Institute, Research Centre, Bellary – 583 104 (Karnataka) Phone: 08392-242164 Fax: 08392-242665 Email: soilcons2bly@gmail.com