Assessment of available sulphur status in major green gram growing blocks of Madurai district of Tamil Nadu and creation of thematic map using GIS

Abstract

The study was conducted in major green gram growing blocks of Madurai district with a vision to assess the soil available sulphur status, since, sulphur plays a vital role in pulses crop production. Among thirteen blocks of Madurai district, pulses were grown predominantly in five blocks viz., Thirumangalam, Usilampatti, T. Kallupatti, Sedapatti and Kalligudi according to their area, production and productivity. Two hundred and fifty soil samples were collected from green gram cultivating villages of those five major blocks. Overall soil available sulphur status in those five blocks ranged from 3.10 mg kg-1 to 18.20 mg kg-1 with a mean value of 10.65 mg kg-1. Overall soil samples results were categorized, in this 67 per cent of soil samples found low in available sulphur status, 21 per cent of soil samples is medium status and 12 per cent of soil samples under high status. Among the five blocks, Thirumangalam block soil samples has registered high percentage of low available sulphur status (84%) which is followed by Usilampatti showed 82 percent low in available sulphur content. Simple correlation and multiple regression analysis were also done to determine the most influencing soil properties on available Sulphur, which inturn aids to ascertain the degree of relationship between them.