**3. Soil amendments for soil health improvement**

Sustainable crop production and improving soil quality is a major concern which need development of management strategies without negative effect on environment can lead to food security and natural resource conservation. In this approach, soil organic matter plays indispensable role which is directly related with soil ecosystem services and functions for long term oilseed productivity. Soil management for sustainable agriculture can be achieved by improving soil organic matter/ organic carbon of soil through organic amendments addition to soil at regular time intervals. Thus, soil organic matter will help to conserve or restore soil fertility to meet present and future food requirement, with acceptable impact on environment [25, 26]. Soil health is directly related to soil and crop productivity and is being recognized as a major component for mitigating climate change effect and food security. Soil health is closely associated with soil quality, in which the biological health of the organism in soil is critical for soil resiliency and ecosystem services [3]. Constant decline in soil health post green revolution in many countries are growing challenge for stakeholders to sustain oilseed productivity. Inorganic fertilizer application is effective to increase oilseed yield might be short term, but require long term additions. Increasing cost of chemical fertilizers are uneconomical for marginal farmers and creating environmental problems. Therefore, its essential to select locally available organic resources that are easily available, eco-friendly and at reasonable price for farmers application. Based on a recent report by Shukla [27], based on soil sample collected from various Indian states, indicated soils were deficient in sulfur, Zn, Fe, Cu, Mn and B by 41, 43,14.4, 6.1, 7.9 and 20.6% respectively. In soybean and mustard growing belt of North India, most soils are deficient of S an essential nutrient determining oil quality and productivity. Inadequate and imbalanced nutrient management in oilseed crops results in multi-nutrient deficiency in crops and arable soils. Therefore, integration of soil organic amendments for improving soil health by applying various organic

**Figure 1.** *Potential benefits of soil amendments.*

sources includes, FYM, compost, vermicompost, biofertilizers, municipal solid waste, agro-industry waste etc. Addition of such organic amendments to soil will not only improve soil fertility, but would improve physical properties and enhance microbial activity and plant growth [28, 29]. Direct and indirect benefits of using soil amendments are illustrated in **Figure 1**. Soil amendments acts as soil conditioners by alleviating stress, improving soil properties and fertility, enhances ecosystem services and human health, showing minimum impact on environment.

Stagnation in oilseed crop yield in many areas of the world has been attributed to suboptimal supply of nutrients, poor or no application of organic manures, negligible use of soil amendments, erratic rainfall pattern etc. Soils with low organic matter coupled with low native P, sulfur deficiency and micro-nutrient unavailability are some of the major constraint limiting oilseed yield. Best nutrient management practices, therefore, include integration of organic amendments with recommended chemical fertilizer doses to supply macro and micro nutrients to facilitate crop nutrient demand. Integrated nutrient management signifies the role of organic amendments in partially replacing inorganic fertilizers will not only supply essential macro and micro nutrients to crops but would regulate, water, air, temperature, nutrient transformation and biological activities [26]. Major challenges for maintaining sustainable crop production involves use of tools and techniques to enhance agricultural productivity ensuring food security, with minimum disturbance to environmental systems. Many ecological interventions have been addressed to improve the delivery of ecosystem services and functions, by reduce anthropogenic inputs in agriculture. With more emphasis on circular economy paradigm shift, decreasing the dependency on external inputs, reuse, recycling of the available resources at farm aimed at preserving and protecting soil ecosystem. Soil amendments could thus be effective strategy in gaining momentum towards natural or organic farming replacing costlier chemical inputs. Organic amendments such as manures, crop residues (CR), composts, green manures, biosolids, agri-processing industry wastes, industrial slurries etc. are usually applied to soils either as fertilizers or used for ameliorant and remediation purposes [30]. Biofertilizers commonly known as microbial consortia's or micro-organisms are beneficial microbes used for improving soil health and productivity. They are also included under organic amendment category known as biofertilization techniques [31]. Soil health is defined as the capacity to perform various functions to support plants and organisms. Recovery, restoration and conservation of soil health is utmost important for survival of living beings. Reviving soil health with use of soil organic amendments is gaining much attention due to its cost-effective and eco-friendly approaches. The potential benefits of soil amendments on soil properties are shown in **Figure 2**.

*Soil Amendments: An Ecofriendly Approach for Soil Health Improvement and Sustainable… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106606*

**Figure 2.**

*Soil amendments influence on physical-chemical and biological properties of soil.*
