Abstract

The soil resource of India’s North-Western-Himalayan Region (NWHR) is fruitful, and numerous crops are cultivated there. Rainfed maize is the most prevalent crop in NWHR, covering 0.33 million hectares. Several production egresses currently limit maize’s full productivity potential by diminishing the region’s natural resource sustainability, namely land and water. Soil erosion is one of the most important issues among them, resulting in significant soil and water loss. If farmers continue to use traditional corn-growing practices, soil loss due to erosion in NWHR on a slope of 4% can reach up to 30.0t ha-1 at times [1]. Due to erosion, traditional rainfed corn farming loses a substantial amount of soil nutrients, including 25-30kg of nitrogen, 1.0-1.5kg of phosphorus, 20-20kg of potassium, and 300- 350kg of carbon per hectare. Corn has morphological characteristics that expose a larger area of the soil, rendering it sensitive to erosion. Most soils are subject to erosion since the sole maize crop only covers 20-30 percent of the soil surface up to 30 days after sowing (Figure 1).