Contour plowing was a method of plowing furrows that follow the curves of the land rather than straight up and down slopes. Furrows that run up and down a slope form a channel that can quickly carry away seeds and topsoil. Contour plowing forms ridges, slows the water flow and helps save precious topsoil.

Contour ploughing mitigates the impacts of floods, storms and landslides on the crops by reducing soil erosion up to 50 percent, controlling runoff water, increasing moisture infiltration and retention and thus enhancing soil quality and composition.

Terraces reduce both the amount and velocity of water moving across the soil surface, which greatly reduces soil erosion. Terracing thus permits more intensive cropping than would otherwise be possible.

Answer: The practice has been proved to reduce fertilizer loss, power and time consumption, and wear on machines, as well as to increase crop yields and reduce erosion. Contour farming can help absorb the impact of heavy rains, which in straight-line planting often wash away topsoil.

Contour cultivation (contour farming, contour plowing, or contour bunding) is a sustainable way of farming where farmers plant crops across or perpendicular to slopes to follow the contours of a slope of a field. This arrangement of plants breaks up the flow of water and makes it harder for soil erosion to occur.

The following are the 10 steps of SALT.

1. Step 1: MAKE AN A-FRAME.
2. Step 2: LOCATE THE CONTOUR LINES.
3. Step 3: PREPARE THE CONTOUR LINES.
4. Step 4: PLANT SEEDS OF NITROGEN FIXING TREES.
5. Step 5: CULTIVATE ALTERNATE STRIPS.
6. Step 6: PLANT PERMANENT CROPS.
7. Step 7: PLANT SHORT AND MEDIUM-TERM CROPS.

Contour bunding or contour farming or Contour ploughing is the farming practice of plowing and/or planting across a slope following its elevation contour lines. In contour plowing, the ruts made by the plow run perpendicular rather than parallel to the slopes, generally furrows that curve around the land and are level.

Contour farming is farming with row patterns that run nearly level around the hill — not up and down the hill. Contour stripcropping is crop rotation and contouring combined in equal-width strips of corn or soybeans planted on the contour and alternated with strips of oats, grasses, or legumes.

Measuring slopes on a contour map: – Find the elevations of the contour lines on each side of it. – Measure the distance between the contour lines (at right angles to the lines themselves). – Slope = “rise over run”, or vertical height increase over horizontal distance.

Terrace farming and contour ploughing are both used to reduce soil erosion on slopes from tilled fields….Write is the difference between terrace farming and contour ploughing.

The contour interval depends upon the general topography of the terrain. In flat ground, contours at small intervals are surveyed to depict the general slope of the ground whereas high hills can only be depicted with contours at larger contour interval.

A contour interval is the vertical distance or difference in elevation between contour lines. Index contours are bold or thicker lines that appear at every fifth contour line. If the numbers associated with specific contour lines are increasing, the elevation of the terrain is also increasing.

Contour interval (CI) is the difference of value of two consecutive contours (larger contour value – next smaller contour value). Horizontal equivalent is the horizontal distance between any two consecutive contours. Generally CI remains constant for any contour map, but horizontal equivalent varies with varying slope.

In the study of the Earth’s magnetic field, the term isogon or isogonic line refers to a line of constant magnetic declination, the variation of magnetic north from geographic north. An agonic line is drawn through points of zero magnetic declination.

Contour lines are used to join points of equal height. Every 50m there is a thicker line with the height above sea level marked on the map. The closer the contour lines are the steeper the slope, the more spaced out they are the flatter the land. The numbers are displayed in ascending height.