It is the museum of something that you step on every day, but rarely notice. And it is about to get a lot bigger. The Soil Museum run by the State Soil Survey and Soil Conservation Department at Parottukonam in the district is expanding its collection with samples collected from all over the country.
Twenty soil monoliths — each weighing about 30-35 kg — have arrived at the museum from 15 States and the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The monoliths represent 20 agro-ecological regions in India. The Soil Museum expects to have them on display in a month’s time.
This is a major acquisition for the six-year-old museum which till now featured samples from only Kerala — 1.5-metre-high monoliths of 82 benchmark soils encountered in the State’s 27 major land resource areas. The new arrivals arguably make the State Soil Museum the best-stocked of its kind in the country.
Benchmark soil
“Soils from the north-eastern States are represented by one sample each from Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. One sample each have also come in from Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. There are two samples each from Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh and three from Karnataka,” said Bindu Rajagopal, Joint Director, Soil Survey.
The new samples were acquired through the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Ms. Rajagopal added. The museum, which aims to raise public awareness about soils, opened in January 2014 with monoliths of 82 benchmark soils. To be classified as a ‘benchmark soil,’ the soil has to be found extensively in a given region. Further, it should hold an important position in the soil classification system and human activities such as agriculture. Once a monolith is extracted, it undergoes a laborious conservation before it is mounted for display.
A visitor to the museum is provided detailed descriptions of each soil type, their location and advantages such as crop compatibility. At the moment, it has on display 78 monoliths as four have been taken down for repairs.
