Levelling of land is important for mango plantation?

I want to plant mango saplings in un even levels of land (Up and downs) is it required to level the land before planting mango saplings? Is it compulsory? Please suggest.

I believe if you are using drip irrigation, great amount of levelling would be unnecessary.
However did you evaluate if there is going to be a lot of erosion that may uproot the mango plants?

I agree.

[quote=Chandra]However did you evaluate if there is going to be a lot of erosion that may uproot the mango plants?
[/quote]
If you have issues with top soil erosion, you can make bunds to stop it.

The major disadvantage is that you will loose the fertility in top soil. I have met many people who have done levelling and lost fertility of soil. they waited almost 4-5 years to get back the soil to original form.

HI

a) Do not have first hand experience with the extent of damage that can be caused by disturbing the top soil, but was warned in very very serious terms against touching the top soil by an prof at an agricultural university.

b) A farm I had purchased also had a very steep gradient with visible marks of water flow and soil erosion, even a small gully flowing through the land. The solution I opted for was to sacrifice some land in the path of the gully. Dug a deep 50’X20’ and 12 feet deep ditch along the gully. Used the excavated earth to make solid bunds across the fields. The aim was to compartmentalize the land and cut down the soil erosion, trap water in field and also in the ditch along the gully.

Have not yet seen any major downpour since i took up work described in b and hence am not certain how effective it will be.

If you do take up something in similar lines would advise you to
i) do a proper calculation of earth work to estimate the cost of digging and spreading the earth. I used a JCB and 2 tractors. A proper calculation would help in completing the work at a designed cost.
ii) Try to locate a bund former tractor attachment for shaping the bunds. I could not locate one and ended up using the JCB to make bunds. As a result I have got bunds of a size that are probably good enough to hold a once in a century kind of rainfall :frowning:

According to me for the Mango plantation no need of leveling.
Watering has to be done by Dreep Irigation Method.
Do not disturb the soil layers by leveling.
Please put on Max Bio Mass in the peats.
Even you can use Suresh Deasi Method Of Mulchingthe stems of the many seeds.
By sowing the mix of the many seeds .
Dhencha,Sun Hamp,Moong,Udada,Peas,Chilli,Methi,pulses Ets per peat around 100 gms.
Cut it after 45 days & dump it there in the peat.
Thank You
Raju Gandhi
Sheti Udyog Bhandar Swargate pune 411042
rajugandhi07@gmail.com
shetiudyog@live.in
09822052586

An update on my earlier post.

i) The bunds since laid by JCB’s were very large. But the slope and downpour were much greater ( estimated 100 mm of rain fall within 24 hours ). All bunds failed.

ii) The pond’s filled with the single day’s downpour and water level dropped by around 4 feet pretty fast, after that the level dropped at a much much lower rate.

iii) After having observed the behavior last year, This year 2014 around the same time, i repaired the bunds at the points they had collapsed and added six inches concrete pipes at the points of failure to assist in overflow without failure to bunds.

iv) enthused by the water retention in the pit, dug an additional pit and completed bunds on all sides

v) In the rains following the above there was another big downpour ( may be 80mm in 24 hours according to accuweather). Both ponds filled. One bund continues to collapse.

Have not yet used the water in the pits. next year plan to merge the pits with some additional digging, fix the bunds and create a semi permanent structure to use the water collected in the pits.

Will water be stagnant near(by) the roots of the saplings? If Yes, then those areas need to be levelled. Otherwise, root rot disease may occur.

Otherwise, levelling is not required.

Ramesh,
If you don’t have leveled landscape, go for swales. Swales are literally erosion free. Once you establish a key line water system using swales then the mango trees can go almost perennial. You can browse through the articles of permaculturenews.org/ for different applications of swales. If your bunds are still being eroded, you can build a hedge against that. Check out Bhoomi putra episode 129 for any further inputs.

Regards,
AKS

Hello AKS

Sorry for the delay in responding. The issue turned out to be inadequate drainage. Added a number of 6" cement pipes for drainage of water and repaired the bunds. They are holding up now. Also the pond seems to have helped in recharging a bore well adjacent to them. Am getting water enough water from the bore well to cultivate two acres with surface irrigation. Earlier output from the bore well was inadequate to consider any farming activity.