Raised and Sunken Bed Technology in Waterlogged Sodic Soils

Since majority of sodic lands in U.P. are with resource poor medium to small land holders. Therefore, for them a system of raised and sunken bed was evolved using land modification technique in Sarda Sahayak canal command area. In raised and sunken bed system the area is divided into number of strips of desired width. Raised and sunken beds are constructed alternatively by digging soil from one strip and putting it on the other. A minimum width of raised bed was taken as 2.0 m and the height of sunken bed was 1.0 m above ground surface. The average depth of sunken bed was 0.50 m below ground surface and side slope was 1:1. Vegetable crops like tomato, brinjal, bottle gourd, bitter gourd, ridge gourd, sponge gourd, okra, chilly, tinda, pumpkin, cucumber, etc, were grown on the beds during kharif, rabi and summer seasons. Tissue culture banana plantlets were taken on the raised beds. The entire water requirement of the banana plants was met from the water from sunken beds and also through seepage. An average of 22.5 kg of banana was obtained from 140 plants taken on two beds. Deep water rice and water chestnut was cultivated in the sunken beds. The model will be helpful in minimizing the negative impact of the seepage water on ecological system of the canal command areas.