Test: Soil samples being collected from a farm at Krishnapuram near Palayamkottai. TIRUNELVELI: Farmers, who have cultivated horticultural crops, especially perennial crops under drip irrigation, should test the soil and water, which are mandatory not only to claim subsidy under micro irrigation system but also to know their health condition and ensure better yield, prescribes T.V. Katchi Jamal, Deputy Director of Horticulture, Tirunelveli. Soil, an abode of millions of living organisms which act on plant residues and release food materials to plants, is just not an ordinary mass of dead particles of rock but a medium humming with activity, responsive to water, plant and management by the farmer. Though soil and water are two variables, they have to be suitably adjusted according to the nature of the plant so that the plant can be rightly bred by chemically analysing their nature, he added. S. Raja Mohamed, Horticultural Officer, Palayamkottai, demonstrated the soil sampling method in the farm of one P. Pandaaram Yadhav of Krishnapuram, a cluster village under National Horticulture Mission. When Mr. Pandaaram, lured by the National Horticulture Mission scheme and the subsidy being given for drip irrigation, decided to raise amla on his wasteland kept uncultivable for long time, he approached the Department of Horticulture to test the soil and water quality in his farm.