**3.3 Moisture conservation through land management**

Soybean is cultivated majorly on medium to heavy soils and in Indian context, it is cultivated as major crop in rainfed areas which are associated with the dominance of vertisol soils. The rainfed areas of India are having the variation in rainfall distribution and its frequency. Extreme events like incidence of nearly 50% of seasonal rainfall in 2–3 rainy days are also recorded in many places in rainfed areas. As the Vertisol soils are high in clay content and their characteristic feature of swelling and shrinkage associated with slow infiltration rate, in such extreme events, they are prone to heavy runoff losses. The loss of rainwater not only removes soil nutrients but also its availability for utilization by crop toward its growth over season is also lost. This situation demands the essentiality for *in situ* soil and water conservation. Also, safe removal of excess water from the field is essential under water stagnation conditions. For attaining good drainage and *in situ* soil and water conservation land lay outs can be altered to achieve these objectives, which are as below.
