Soil Microbial Diversity in Long Term Fertilizer Experiments in different Agroecological Zones in India

Abstract

On-going long term fertilizer experiments results illustrated that nutrient management options have influenced the biological properties of soil. Imbalanced fertilizer application adversely affected the biological state of the soil. Across the agroecological zones (AEZ), the balance nutrient application significantly improved the count of microorganisms i.e. bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes; their enzymatic activities and also active pools of nutrients. However, NPK+hand weeding treatment has edge over treatment 100% NPK with herbicide in terms of microbial count, microbial biomass carbon, dehygrogenase activities. The use of NPK along with farmyard manure has further enhanced all the stated soil biological properties of alfisols, vertisols and inceptisols. In alfisols, lime amendment has beneficial effect on biological health.