Abstract
A fields experiment was conducted on a sandy clay loam soil during summer season to characterize the soil crust to alleviate soil crust with organic waste and other amendments to improve the yield. Maize residue treatment recorded significantly higher grain and straw yields, seedling emergence, reduction in the crust strength and increase in the moisture content of the crust was observed due to maize residues incorporation. Soil crust contains higher amount of finer fractions, sesquioxides, iron, dispersion ratio and lower amount of organic matter. The problem of soils crusting is common in agricultural soils under a wide range of climatic conditions. Soil crust is a hard layer formed on the surface due to impact of rain drops and subsequent drying. Though the seeds germinate below the crust, seedlings are not able to exert sufficient upward pressure to pierce through the crust resulting in pre-emergence death of seedlings, crusts are known to adversely affect seedling emergence, early growth of seedling oxygen supply, moisture iniliteration but increase erosion and run off.
