Agriculture department lays emphasis on conducting soil tests

There are four soil testing centres in erstwhile Khammam district with a static lab in Khammam, one testing centre at Sathupalli agriculture market, Kothagudem and Bhadrachalam market yard.

Khammam: The agriculture department has been laying emphasis on soil testing of agriculture lands to ensure high crop yield and reduce investment costs.

There are four soil testing centres in erstwhile Khammam district with a static lab in Khammam, one testing centre at Sathupalli agriculture market, Kothagudem and Bhadrachalam market yard.

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The gross cropped area of Khammam district is 2, 61, 360 hectares while in Kothagudem crops have been an extent of 1, 87, 488 acres land. In the past soil tests used to be conducted under National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), wherein farmers were given soil test cards but the scheme stopped in 2019.

Now the department is planning to conduct tests through agriculture market committees. An amount of Rs 7.20 lakh has been allotted to each soil testing centre with a target to conduct 2400 soil tests under each centre.

The soil tests would help to decide the quantity of fertilisers to be used enabling the farmers to reduce costs in fertilisers and suitable crops, informed Swaroopa Rani assistant director of agriculture at Khammam soil test centre. Meanwhile officials in erstwhile Khammam have been encouraging farmers to make use of silt removed from tanks under employment guarantee scheme.

Officials are asking small and marginal farmers to contact concerned MPDO and additional programme officers and bear the tractor transportation cost and take the silage to their crop fields free of cost.

Khammam district Collector VP Gautham informed that siltation works are being done in 304 tanks under 277 gram panchayats in 20 mandals of the district under the NREGS. So far 3820 farmers have transported silt from tanks to their fields.

He said that research has shown that there are many nutritional values in the tank silt such nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, boron and organic carbon materials besides bacteria that contribute to the growth of crops.

Due to the use of silt soil by farmers, the use of chemical fertilisers would be reduced by 50 percent and the crop yield would increase. The tank silt would act as organic fertiliser for the crops, the cost of cultivation would be reduced, the soil fertility would be increased ensuring higher crop yield, Gautham noted.