Effect of Contour Cultivation on Rainfall-Runoff Relationship and Productivity in Rainfed Agriculture

A field experiment was carried out to test the suitability of contour cultivation with vegetative contour hedges (T2, leucaena and T3, vetivar) over cultivation across (T4) and along (T1, traditional) the slope in controlling runoff, soil and nutrient losses. During the study period of 9 years, data pertaining to surface runoff, soil and nutrient losses revealed the superiority of contour cultivations along with the vegetative hedges in controlling runoff and soil nutrient losses over cultivation across and along the slope. The average percentage runoff for the rainfall causing runoff (437.41 mm) was 14.98 (T3), 20.42 (T2), 22.46 (T4) and 28.93 (T1) along with the soil loss of 1.36 (T3), 2.31 (T2), 3.99 (T4) and 7.21 (T1) t.ha-1. Maximum reduction in NPK (55 to 63%) was observed in contour cultivation along with the vetiver hedge (T3). The average yield levels of sorghum enhanced by 14.40 to 19.38% in contour cultivation with vegetative hedges (T2 and T3) and 7.45% in cultivation across the slope (T4) over the traditional practice of cultivation along the slope (T1). It was observed that contour cultivation along with the vetivar hedges (T3) is effective in controlling runoff and soil and nutrient losses. The study further indicated that the best fit equations were 4th degree polynomial for all the treatments having coefficient of determinant (R2) as 0.86, 0.84, 0.72 and 0.84 for T1, T2, T3 and T4 respectively.The developed rainfall-runoff relationships could be successfully used for predicting runoff

Removal of Lead from Sewage Water using Response Surface Methodology: A Case Study

Removal of lead (Pb) from sewage water by phytorid sewage treatment plant was studied at Agriculture College, Maharajbag, Nagpur to examine the efficacy of the phytorid sewage treatment plant in Pb removal from the sewage water, and to determine the optimum condition using response surface methodology. A Box-Behnken model was employed as an experimental design. The effect of three independent variables hydraulic loading or flow (50 - 150 m3 .d-1), dilution (10 - 80 %) and spatial length (16 - 100 %) was studied on Pb removal from the sewage water in bench mode of the experiment. The optimal conditions of Pb removal were found to be flow of 86 m3 .d-1, dilution of 78% and spatial length of 55 per cent. Under these experimental conditions, the experimental Pb removal obtained was 0.0035 mg.l-1. The proposed model equation using the RSM showed good agreement with the experimental data, with a coefficient of determination (R2 ) of 98.30 per cent. The result showed that optimised condition could be used for the efficient removal of the Pb from the sewage water

In book: Sustainable Management of Land Resources – An Indian Perspective

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