Madras Agricultural Journal
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Research Article | Open Access | Peer Review

Soil Suitability Assessment for Intercropping Cocoa in Coconut Gardens of Tamil Nadu

Sudhalakshmi C
Volume : 108
Issue: September(7-9)
Pages: 313 - 320
Downloads: 0
Published: December 20, 2021
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Abstract


Geo-referenced soil samples were collected from forty cocoa-growinglocations across six districts (Coimbatore, Dindigul, Erode, Namakkal, Salemand Tirunuelveli) of Tamil Nadu. Analysis of data revealed that a vast majorityof the samples were alkaline (83 %), non-saline, low in organic carbon (51.3%), low in KMnO4-N (75 %), medium in available phosphorus (60 %) andmedium in available potassium (51.25 %). The soils were predominantlydeficient in DTPA Zn (71.25 %) and DTPA Cu (32.5 %) in the samplinglocations. About 20 % of the cocoa-growing locations were calcareous. Thecorrelation between free CaCO3 content of soil and pod yield revealed thatcocoa productivity is drastically affected if the free CaCO3 content of soilis more than 8.0%. Soil suitability assessment is highly imperative beforeundertaking cocoa intercropping in coconut gardens of Tamil Nadu.

DOI
Pages
313 - 320
Creative Commons
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords


Calcareousness; Cocoa; Coconut; Intercropping; Pod yield; Soil Fertility
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