Enhancing Groundwater Recharge and Yield by Adoption of Continuous Contour Trenches in Micro Catchments

In dryland agricultural sloping fields, whenever the rainfall event occurs, runoff begins and flows down from the slopes causing erosion. In such conditions, defined special measures can be adopted, which reduce runoff enabling the water to infiltrate down to the ground. Contour trenches are made mainly with this objective. The implementation of continuous contour trenches was done under various schemes viz. EGS, SGRY, RLEGP, DLFM, etc. in Maharashtra. To have definite quantification of conservation, recharge, soil moisture variations owing to acceptance of CCTs the research work was done on small catchment basis so that the appraisal and checking of CCTs is possible. It will be useful for researchers, field officers, farmers and NGOs. The study was conducted at the research field of the AICRP for Dryland Agriculture, Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola. The catchment of 1.0 ha area was divided into two parts. One part is having CCTs and other kept as a control. The observations of LAI, soil moisture and groundwater level were collected. The Leaf Area Index (LAI) and interception component of seasonal crop and perennial plantations (Custard apple and Hanuman Phal) in a small catchment for the years 2022-23 and 2023-24 was observed to be highest at the flowering (3.67) and (3.61) stages, respectively. For perennial plantations, the LAI was observed highest at the developed fruit stages of the Custard apple and Hanuman phal. During both these years, canopy interception was also observed more in CCT adopted field compared to control field for seasonal and perennial plantations. The soil moisture was observed more in the catchment of CCT over control catchment. It was observed that by adoption of CCTs the groundwater recharge was increased by 20.51% over control (without CCT field). The acceptance of CCT resulted in yield increase of seasonal crop by 35.30% and yielding of fruits was more in CCT field by 49.10% over control.