The Indian population is growing rapidly (1.25 billion) and it has to fulfill its food and nutrition requirement. A collaborative strategy should be adopted for increasing productivity by intensifying available land use system. Intercropping is advanced management practices of soil fertility status, consisting of cultivating two or more crops in the same space at the same time, which have been ...

Biochar application as a soil amendment has been proposed as a strategy to improve soil fertility and increase crop yields. However, the effects of successive biochar applications on cotton yields and nutrient distribution in soil are not well documented. A three-year field study was conducted to investigate the effects of successive biochar applications at different rates on cotton yield and o...

Approaches to soil management, including problems of soil degradation and low soil fertility, have recently undergone major changes. The former view was to concentrate on achieving high levels of production from the more fertile areas, leaving the marginal lands for extensive use only. Steeply sloping and highly drought-prone areas were preferably not to be cultivated at all. Soil constraints w...

Alfred Hartemink is a soil scientist at ISRIC in Wageningen. Prior to his current position he was lecturer in soil science at the University of Technology in Papua New Guinea. He holds an MSc in soil science from Wageningen Agricultural University, and has worked as a soil surveyor and soil fertility specialist in Tanzania, Zaire, Indonesia, and for ICRAF in Kenya. Dr Mike Bourke is an Adjunct ...

MSS. intended for publication and books, etc.,intended for review should be sent to The Editor of Science, Garrison-onHudson, N. Y. THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF THE ILLINOI,S SYSTEM OF PERMANENT SOIL FERTILITY' IT is practically impossible to cover, in an adequate way, the scientific principles underlying the Illinois system of permanent soil fertility in the brief space of time allotted me on the p...