Soil nutrients, microbial biomass, and crop response to organic amendments in rice cropping system in the Shiwaliks of Indian Himalayas

Richa Rajput,A Arunachalam,Pooja Panwar,Kusum Arunachalam,Priya Pokhriya

doi:10.1007/s40093-018-0230-x

Richa Rajput, A Arunachalam + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40093-018-0230-x

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Abstract

PurposeIntensive agriculture activities in small holder farming systems are declining over all soil nutrient status. The present study is conducted to compare the soil health and plant growth attributes under rice cultivation among different organic amendments. Recycled waste of rice–wheat agrosystem is utilized to determine optimal sustainable solution for hilly areas.MethodsRandomly blocked design experiment was conducted with rice plants, each amended with organic inputs including rice straw residue (T1), rice biochar (T2), rice compost (T3), wheat straw residue (T4), wheat biochar (T5), wheat compost (T6), mix of wheat + rice compost (T7), green manure (T8) and control (no amendment). Soil samples were studied at each growth phase while plant growth attributes were measured at the harvesting stage of the crop.ResultsT6 and T7 have shown significantly higher magnitude of soil organic carbon, microbial biomass carbon, microbial quotient, available nitrogen, and enzymatic activities (dehydrogenase, alkaline phosphatase and urease) than biochar (T2 and T5) and crop residue amendments (T1, T4 and T8). An increase of up to 47% was obtained in cumulative growth attributes (plant height, total biomass, and a number of tillers, spikes, and spike length) of rice plant in T6 amendment. The principal component analysis revealed two components responsible for 54.17% of the variance in the organically treated soil.ConclusionThe experimental results imply that composting of crop residues could be the most reliable practice to improve soil nutritional quality as well as crop growth for sustainable rice–wheat cropping system in the hilly area.

Highlights

Sustainable agriculture envisages efficient utilization of agricultural waste in a way that it does not deplete the existing nutritious entities of the soil and replenish it in the long run
T7, T6, and T3 had the maximum concentration with a highest average concentration of 20.29 g kg−1 in T7. It was followed by biochars of rice (T2) and wheat (T5) and crop residues of rice (T1) and wheat (T4)
Soil with rice biochar had a higher concentration of available nitrogen than wheat biochar treatment (Fig. 1b)

Summary

Introduction

Sustainable agriculture envisages efficient utilization of agricultural waste in a way that it does not deplete the existing nutritious entities of the soil and replenish it in the long run. Nutrition cycle of the soil gets impaired due to the presence of readily available nutrients in the form of fertilizers which hampers the natural unidirectional flow of immobilisation and mineralization of natural elements of the soil which in turn affects the growth of the living components of the soil, i.e., microorganisms (Heilmann et al 1995; Kuzyakov et al 2000; Harris and Roach 2018) This has led to the eco-friendly option of organic farming that fulfills the requirement of both sustainable agriculture and conservation agriculture, where the output of one activity transforms into the input for other. The availability of surplus agriculture waste from rice–wheat agro-ecosystem makes it a suitable potential model for sustainable agriculture Both rice and wheat cropping systems demand labor-intensive farming practices, where a required level of nutrition has to be maintained in the soil for the crop productivity. It has been a traditional practice in the hills, is a way forward to maintain the health and fertility of the soil

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