Vol. 11, Issue 12 (2022)

Author(s):
T Laxman, M Vijay Kumar, R Uma Reddy, G Vijayalaxmi and K Sridhar

Abstract:
Soil is intended to produce food for feeding the growing population of the world. A healthy soil acts as a dynamic living system that delivers multiple ecosystems such as sustaining water quality and plant productivity, controlling soil nutrient recycling decomposition and removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Soil health is closely associated with sustainable agriculture. Agricultural sustainability is the ability of crop production system to continuously produce food without environmental degradation. Soil management is important, both directly and indirectly, in terms of crop productivity, environmental sustainability and human health. Hence to evaluate sustainability of agricultural practices assessment of soil health is crucial to overcome the vagaries of climate change on soil functions. Assessment of Soil health by using various indicators of soil quality and soil management practices such as organic farming, site specific nutrient management and tillage improvement practices like conservation tillage can improve the soil health by increasing the abundance, diversity and activity of microorganisms. Conservation tillage can potentially increase Growers profitability by reducing inputs and labour costs as compared to conventional tillage. This paper reviewed about the impact of crop and soil management practices on soil health and their role in sustainable agriculture.