Haryana Climate, Soils and Forests: Complete GK Notes

The correct answer is B, the loo. The loo is the hot, dry wind that blows from the west and north-west over the plains of Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh in May and June. It raises the daytime temperature sharply, dries the air and is dangerous enough that outdoor work is avoided in the afternoon while it blows.

Option A, Kalbaisakhi, is the violent evening thunderstorm of Bengal, Bihar and Assam in the pre-monsoon months, not a wind of Haryana. Option C, the mango shower, is pre-monsoon rain over Kerala, Karnataka and the Konkan that helps the mango crop ripen, again a peninsular phenomenon. Option D, the norwester, is simply the English name for the same Kalbaisakhi storm of eastern India. The point to keep is that Haryana lies deep inland on the hot plain, so its characteristic summer wind is a dry heat wind and not a rain-bearing one.

The correct answer is B, from north-east to south-west. The Shivalik districts of Panchkula, Ambala and Yamunanagar in the north-east catch the first of the monsoon against the foothills and receive the heaviest rain of the state, while the south-western districts of Sirsa, Bhiwani and Mahendragarh lie towards the dry Thar margin and receive the least.

Option A reverses the gradient and is the distractor the paper setter always offers. Option C is wrong because the fall is diagonal, not a simple north to south decline; Karnal in the north-centre and Rewari in the south do not differ the way a plain north-south rule would predict. Option D is wrong because the Yamuna's course has no control over rainfall; the river runs along the eastern edge of the state while the rain gradient runs across it. Remember the rule as hills wet, desert dry, with the state sloping in rainfall between the two.

The correct answer is C, Panchkula. Panchkula lies in the Shivalik foothills at the north-eastern corner of the state. The monsoon current is lifted by the hills there, so the district receives well over a thousand millimetres in a good year, the highest in Haryana, and it is also the most forested district of the state for the same reason.

Option A, Sirsa, and Option B, Bhiwani, lie in the dry south-west towards the Rajasthan border and are among the driest districts, often under three hundred millimetres. Option D, Mahendragarh, in the Aravalli corner of southern Haryana, is drier still and is the district most often quoted for scarcity of water. A useful way to hold the fact is to pair the wettest and driest ends: Panchkula and Ambala at one end of the state, Sirsa and Mahendragarh at the other.

The correct answer is C, Rausli. Rausli is the loam of the central Haryana plain, a balanced mixture of sand, silt and clay. It drains well, holds enough moisture for a crop and is easy to plough, which makes it the best agricultural soil of the state; the fertile belt of Karnal, Panipat, Sonipat and Rohtak rests on it.

Option A, Bhur, is the loose sandy soil of the south-western districts such as Sirsa, Hisar and Bhiwani, poor in moisture and humus. Option B, Dakar, is the heavy clay of the low-lying eastern tracts; it holds water well but cracks and sets hard when dry and is difficult to work. Option D, Kallar, is not a texture at all but a condition: the saline and alkaline soil of the waterlogged canal tracts, recognised by its white crust. Learning the four names against the four conditions, loam, clay, sand and salt, answers most soil questions on Haryana.

The correct answer is A, Bhur. Bhur is the light, loose, sandy soil found in Sirsa, Hisar, Bhiwani and Mahendragarh, where Haryana shades into the sandy tract of Rajasthan. It is low in organic matter, drains too freely to hold a crop through a dry spell, and shifts in the summer wind to form low dunes, which is why shelter belts of trees are planted across that part of the state.

Option B, Rausli, is the loam of the central districts and the most fertile soil of Haryana, the opposite end of the texture scale. Option C, Dhankar, is clay with a hard calcareous kankar layer beneath it, which blocks root growth and drainage. Option D, Kandi, is the coarse, gravelly and stony soil of the Shivalik foothills in Panchkula, Ambala and Yamunanagar, formed from hill material brought down by seasonal streams. Note that Bhur and Kandi are both coarse, but one is wind-laid sand in the south-west and the other is hill gravel in the north-east.

The correct answer is B, Karnal. The Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, a research institute under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, is at Karnal. It works on reclaiming salt-affected and alkaline land, on gypsum treatment and subsurface drainage, and on salt-tolerant crop varieties, all problems that Haryana's canal-irrigated districts face directly.

Option A, Hisar, is wrong for this institute but is worth remembering for another: Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University is at Hisar, and so is a central institute for buffalo research. Option C, Ambala, is known for its cantonment and its scientific instruments and mixie industry, not for a soil institute. Option D, Rohtak, houses Maharshi Dayanand University and a postgraduate institute of medical sciences. Karnal also holds the National Dairy Research Institute, so the city is a frequent answer in Haryana papers and the two Karnal institutes are often set against each other.

The correct answer is B, the Trans-Gangetic Plains region. In the national division of the country into agro-climatic regions, the Trans-Gangetic Plains region covers Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Chandigarh and the Ganganagar tract of Rajasthan. It is the wheat and rice region of assured canal and tubewell irrigation, and it is the region in which the Green Revolution went furthest.

Option A, the Upper Gangetic Plains region, covers the western and central parts of Uttar Pradesh, east of Haryana. Option C, the Western Dry region, is the arid part of Rajasthan where rainfall is far lower and pearl millet and pulses dominate; although south-western Haryana resembles it, the state is not placed there. Option D, the Middle Gangetic Plains region, covers eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Within Haryana itself, planners use two zones: a north-eastern rice and wheat zone and a south-western cotton, bajra and mustard zone.

The correct answer is C, Peepal. The peepal, Ficus religiosa, is the state tree of Haryana. It is a long-lived tree of the plain, planted at village meeting places and shrines, and the state's scheme that pays a pension for the care of very old trees protects many peepals among them.

Option A, the banyan, is the national tree of India and is the state tree of some other states, but not of Haryana. Option B, shisham, Dalbergia sissoo, is one of the most widely planted timber trees of Haryana along canals and roads, which makes it a tempting answer, but it is not the state tree. Option D, khejri, is the hardy desert tree of the south-west and is the state tree of Rajasthan. The full set for Haryana is worth memorising together: peepal as the tree, the lotus as the flower, the black francolin or kala teetar as the bird and the blackbuck as the animal.

The correct answer is B, Panchkula. Karoh Peak stands in the Morni hills of Panchkula district, in the Shivalik belt at the northern edge of the state, and rises to about 1,467 metres. Morni is also the only hill station of Haryana, and Panchkula is the district with the largest forest cover in the state, so the three facts belong together.

Option A, Yamunanagar, is also a Shivalik district and holds Kalesar with its sal forest, but its hills are lower than the Morni range. Option C, Mahendragarh, lies at the opposite, southern end of the state in the Aravalli corner; its hills are old, worn and far lower, and the district is known instead for dryness and for Dhosi hill. Option D, Ambala, lies on the plain just below the Shivaliks and has no peak of note. Keep the contrast in mind: the Shivaliks in the north are young and higher, the Aravallis in the south are ancient and much reduced.

The correct answer is B, tropical dry deciduous and tropical thorn forests. The Shivalik belt of Panchkula and Yamunanagar carries dry deciduous forest with sal, khair, shisham and sain, while the Aravalli spurs of the south and the dry south-west carry thorn forest of kikar or babool, khejri, ber and dhak. Both types suit a state with low and seasonal rainfall.

Option A is wrong because tropical evergreen and montane wet forests need heavy, well-distributed rain and are found in the Western Ghats, the north-east and the Andaman islands, not in a semi-arid plain. Option C is wrong because mangrove and littoral forests grow on tidal coasts and deltas, and Haryana is landlocked. Option D is wrong because temperate conifers belong to the higher Himalaya; Haryana has only a patch of chir pine on the upper slopes of the Morni hills, which is an exception and not the general type.

The correct answer is B, waterlogging and a rising water table under canal irrigation. Where canal water has been applied for decades without matching drainage, the water table creeps up towards the surface. Capillary action then draws water upward, it evaporates in the dry heat, and the dissolved salts it carried are left behind as the white crust of kallar or reh. Rohtak, Jhajjar and Sonipat show the problem most clearly, and the remedies are gypsum, subsurface drainage and salt-tolerant varieties.

Option A is wrong because fertiliser can harm soil health but is not the cause of this particular salt crust. Option C describes the separate problem of the sandy south-west, where loose bhur soil shifts and forms dunes; that is a physical loss of soil, not salinisation. Option D describes gully and sheet erosion on the Shivalik slopes, again a different problem with different remedies such as check dams and plantations. Keep the three apart: salt in the canal plain, sand in the south-west, erosion in the hills.

The correct answer is C, western disturbances. These are low pressure systems that form over the Mediterranean and West Asia and travel east with the westerly jet stream, reaching north-west India in winter. The rain they bring to Haryana is small in amount but decisive in effect, because it falls on standing wheat, gram and mustard and saves the farmer a round of irrigation; the same systems bring the cold waves and the frost.

Option A, the south-west monsoon, gives Haryana the bulk of its rain but only between July and September. Option B, the retreating monsoon of October and November, leaves north-west India dry and clear and is the sowing time for rabi crops rather than a rain-giving season. Option D is wrong because the north-east monsoon of October to December waters the Coromandel coast, mainly Tamil Nadu and coastal Andhra Pradesh, and never reaches Haryana. The examiner's trap is to offer the north-east monsoon as the winter rain of the whole country.