ABSTRACT
Besides growing annual crops, a great emphasis is being laid on the development of agroforestry systems in this region which also includes cultivation of arid fruit crops in cropping systems. Horticulture based production systems are considered to be the most ideal strategy to provide food, nutrition and income security to the people. Soil analysis can be used to assess the nutritional status for tree crops provided that a particular site selected for sampling fall outside the range of fertility and the sample size is adequate for the crop and soil. Soil sampling before planting serves three major purposes: Determine soil properties such as pH, texture, nutrient availability, or salinity. The region of appearance of deficiency symptoms depends on mobility of nutrient in plants. Nutritional disorders have become widespread with diminishing use of organic manures, adoption of high density planting, use of root stocks for dwarfing, disease and salt tolerance, unbalanced NPK fertiliser application and extension of horticulture to marginal lands.
