Red soil is a type of soil that develops in a warm, temperate, moist climate under deciduous or mixed forest, having thin organic and organic-mineral layers overlying a yellowish-brown leached layer resting on an illuvium red layer. Red soils are generally derived from crystalline rock. They are usually poor growing soils, low in nutrients and humus and difficult to be cultivated because of its low water holding capacity.
Red soils are an important resource.
In general these soils are deficient in lime, magnesia, phosphates, nitrogen, humus and potash. Intense leaching is a menace to these soils. On the uplands,
they are thin, poor and gravelly, sandy, or stony and porous, light-colored soils on which food crops like bajra can be grown. But on the lower plains and valleys they are rich,
deep, dark colored fertile loam on which, under irrigation, they can produce excellent crops like cotton, wheat, pulses, tobacco, jowar, linseed, millet, potatoes and fruits. These are also characterized by stunted forest growth and are suited to dry farming.
