KOCHI: Dry land is commonly seen in hilly areas or where the water table lies so low that even large trees find it difficult to get water. In Kerala, coastal areas do not have much width. In many areas, landscapes stretching 10 to 25 km from the seaside stand elevated. In some places, the elevation is so close to the sea that you can feel the dryness just adjacent to the sea coast. The soil in such dry lands would either be laterite soil or hard rocks. In some places you will hardly find any soil on such rocks. These places have scant vegetation and therefore little humus in the soil. In most of such places, the porosity of soil is so low that water that comes through rain reaches the low lying areas directly without even wetting the elevated areas for generating vegetation. By proper implementation of certain techniques you can convert these dry lands to green havens. The first step is to improve the water retention property in such places. Water retention can be maintained by making pits on the surface. This is a labour intensive work as making the pit is bound to be hard. Fill the pit with ordinary compost, coir pith, vegetable waste, and if possible, some coarse sand. But sand is not all that essential as the soil in such areas is usually grainy. With the addition of vegetable matter, their consistency improves. The planting in such pits can be initiated with the onset of rain. Do not attempt to raise tender plants in the initial stages. You can go for partially xerophytic (preferably useful) and fast growing plants. Bamboo, ficus, mango, spathodea, mimusops and apocyanacean bushes are good choices. These plants will establish themselves in a few years and the soil in the area gets conditioned. More humus will begin to blend with the soil. You must incorporate some ponds for water collection in different areas of the landscape. Channelise water and allow the landscape to sink in such ponds. In the long term, this will improve the water content of the soil. If the water body you created is too large, the water table in the adjacent areas would slowly increase and you can see new vegetation around. Once these plants are established, you can go for hydrophilic plants. When they begin to establish, you can forget worrying about a dry landscape as there will be little water escaping from such land after the rains. The greenery in such places will attract fauna of different types and a micro eco-system will develop with many useful micro-organisms breeding in the soil. mdtecsi@hotmail.com