ABSTRACT

Kuttanad is a region covering the Alappuzha and Kottayam Districts, in the state of Kerala, well known for its vast paddy fields and geographical peculiarities. The region has the lowest altitude in India, and is one of the few places in the world where farming is carried around 1.2 to 3.0 meters below sea level. Kuttanad is historically important and is a major rice producer in the state. Farmers of Kuttanad are famous for bio saline farming. Kuttanad clay is a soft soil with associated problems of low shear strength and compressibility (Vinayachandran et al., 2013). The soil has a unique combination of minerals such as metahalloysite, kaolinite, iron oxides and aluminum oxides. The diatom frustules present in the soil indicate biological activity during the sediment formation and this also accounts for the nature of organic matter predominantly present in the soil, which is mostly derived from planktonic organisms. A considerable amount of organic matter is present in the soil and the magnitude measured accounts for about 14% by mass (Suganya & Sivapullaiah, 2015, 2017). Kuttanad soil is expansive clay having a high void ratio and low density.