Black vertisols, often called black cotton soils, are normally fertile but difficult to manage. When wet they swell and move, and when dry they crack. They are extremely erodible and are difficult and costly to protect using physical structures.

This series of images will try to demonstrate what has to be corrected and how that can be done using vetiver grass hedgerows. Photos were taken by Paul Truong, John Greenfield and Dick Grimshaw.

This shows the typical soil conservation  “Bund” constructed throughout India, but in this case on the Vertisols in the State Maharastra – because of the ‘gilgai’ effect of heaving and shrinking these bunds get cracked apart  - in this case, this bund was designed to control runoff but because you cannot design a static measure in a moving soil the bund was eventually breached and all the runoff washed through it.  Prior to this wash out the ponding of water behind this bund killed the cotton crop it was designed to protect – cotton cannot tolerate poor drainage.