Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry

The Department of Chemistry & Soils was established as part of the College of Agriculture at Hebbal, Bangalore. The Post-Graduate degree in Master’s and Doctoral programme in the Department was started in 1966. The Department was renamed to Department of Soil Science & Agricultural Chemistry in the year 1998. There has been a significant increase in the areas of specialization, laboratory facilities and number of courses offered over the years. Many Post-Graduate students of the department are the recipients of awards such as the prestigious Jawahar Lal Nehru award, Zonal awards of ISSS, FAI award etc which is an indication of academic excellence.

Teaching activities:

The department of Soil Science & Agril. Chemistry, College of Agriculture GKVK is offering under-graduate course leading to B.Sc.(Agri.) B.Sc. (Ag. MaCo) and B.Tech.(Ag Engg.) and PG courses leading to M.Sc. (Agri.) and Ph.D degree programmes.

Research activities:

The faculty is actively involved in major research areas as

Soil Degradation & Remediation
Nutrient Management in crops & soils
- Soil Testing Crop Response studies
- Long Term Fertiliser Experiment
- Sustainable Nutrient Management in Agriculture
- Tracer aided studies in soil & plant nutrition
- Silicon in Agriculture
Environmental Pollution & Remediation
- Pesticide residues in soil, water and plants
- Recycling of industrial and farm wastes in Agriculture
- Heavy metal contamination in soils, plants and waters
Natural Resource Management in Remote Sensing & GIS
Development and Application of Analytical methods for testing Soil, Plant, Water, Fertiliser, Pesticides and Pollutants

The Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry has fiscal support from the State Government, ICAR, DST, DBT, and the Industries for various research projects

Extension Activities :

The Department is actively involved in organizing training programmes, Krishimela, visits for identification of field problems and offering remedial measures. The department also counsel the visiting farmers in areas of soil sampling, fertilizer recommendations, soil fertility management, liming of acid soils, , management of salt affected soils, etc.

Important facilities available in the department:

Pedonarium, where soil monoliths of all the ten agro-climatic zones of Karnataka are preserved. There is a well established Environmental Chemistry Laboratory that undertake pesticide residue analysis. Also, soil, water and manure sample received from outside agencies are tested on payment basis.

The department has well equipped laboratories in the areas of Soil Physics, Soil Chemistry & Fertility, Environmental Chemistry, Remote Sensing and GIS. Sophisticated equipments like GLC, HPLC, CHNS analyzer, AAS, FTIR Spectroscopy, UV-VIS spectrophotometer are available in the laboratories.