Date

4-2010

Degree

Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Engineering

Major Course

Major in Land & Water Resources Engineering

College

College of Engineering and Agro-Industrial Technology (CEAT)

Adviser/Committee Chair

Manolo G. Villano

Committee Member

Rosa B. Delos Reyes, Aurelio A. Delos Reyes

Abstract

A 4-ha corn-based diversified farm in Kay-anlog, Calamba City is currently experiencing low crop yield level attributed in part to high soil rate. To address the problem, a soil and water conservation plan for the farm is being formulated under a Faculty-based Project of the Agricultural Mechanization Development Program and the LAnd and Water Resources Division, Institute of Agricultural Engineering, U.P. Los Baños. It is in the generation of basic data and initial plan formulation that this practicum was conducted. Foremost among the outputs performed by this author is the conduct of field survey and development of a topographic map of the farm with scale of 1:850 and a contour interval of 0.25 meter using geographic information system (GIS) and computer-aided design (CAD) software. With the topographic map, a slope map was generated the farm area falling under specified slope ranges: 31.5% with slopes from 0 to 3.5% 54.0% (3.5 to 12%) 14.2% (12 to 27%) and 0.3% (27 to 47%). Delineating the areas of different existing land uses, almost 90% of the area is being devoted to diversified cropping 5% with Napier grass and 5% built-up area. Together with the established soil erodibility and rainfall erosivity indeces, the present soil erosion rate without conservation treatments was estimated with the Modified Soil Loss Equation (MUSLE)and found to be about 28 tons per hectare per tear which is very high. To reduce this high soil erosion rate to an acceptable level, the following conservation treatments were recommended: contour cultivation and/ or channel terraces on slopes ranging from zero to 12% and bench terraces on slopes of 12 to 27%. On the conditions that these recommendations are implemented, the MUSLE-projected soil erosion rate will be close to 5 tons per hectare per year. which is acceptable. Indeed, the practicum gave the student an opportunity to apply theories learned in class ion real life situations. Specifically, this author gained significant experiences in field data generation, data processing, and an insight on soil and water conservation planning.

Language

English

LC Subject

Agricultural engineering.

Call Number

LG 993 2010 A2 A94

Document Type

Thesis

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