Land suitability for major crops in Varathuru watershed in Andhra Pradesh using RS and GIS

Abstract

Agriculture is a dominant sector in Andhra Pradesh. It contributes 34 percent to the Gross domestic production, employs nearly 55 percent of the total labour force and generates the bulk of market exchange. Poor performance of the agricultural sector in relation to the fast-growing population, intensification of agriculture is the critical aim of the study to find land suitability for major crops of Varathuru watershed using remote sensing and GIS techniques. The objective is to assess the land suitability for major crops based on soil characteristics of Varathuru watershed. The depth-wise soil characteristics at soil series level used to arrive at site-soil characteristics for assessing crop suitability.The site-soil properties of soil series from the study area were matched with soil site suitability criteria for groundnut, redgram, sugarcane and rice crops that are grown in Varathuru watershed area and maps were generated by using ArcGIS V 10.3. Fifteen (15) soil mapping units at phase level were identified and were mapped into ten (10) soil series. The soil series VRT3 was highly suitable for growing groundnut, VRT1, VRT4, VRT5 and VRT8 soil series were moderately suitable for growing groundnut crop. VRT1, VRT3, VRT4, VRT5, VRT6, VRT7 and VRT8 soil series were moderately suitable for growing of redgram and VRT2 and VRT9 series were marginally suitable for growing of redgram crop. VRT1, VRT3, VRT4, VRT5 and VRT8 soil series were moderately suitable and VRT2, VRT6 and VRT7 soil series were marginally suitable for sugarcane growing. Whereas the soils of study area were not suitable for growing of rice crop.