Effect of Organic Farming Practices on Soil Properties and Beneficial Soil Micro-Organism

The field experiment was carried out at MARS, Dharwad during Kharif 2010-11 and 2011-12 to study the effect of organic farming practices on soil properties and beneficial soil micro-organism among the organic manurial treatments, application of EC (1/3) + VC (1/3) + gliricidia GLM (1/3) equivalent to RDF recorded significantly higher uptake of N, P₂O₅ and K₂O (72.53, 14.26 and 77.3 kg ha^-1, respectively) over EC (1/3) + VC (1/3) + GLM (1/3) equivalent to RDN. Among the organic treatment combinations, application of EC (1/3) + VC (1/3) + gliricidia GLM (1/3) equivalent to RDF with foliar spray of Panchagavya @ 5 per cent recorded significantly higher uptake of N, P₂O₅ and K₂O (73.80, 15.16 and 78.4 kg ha^-1, respectively) over other organic combinations and was at par with (1/3) + VC (1/3) + GLM (1/3) equivalent to RDF with borax @ 0.2 per cent + MgSO₄ @ 1 per cent and RDF + FYM. Among the nutrient management practices, integrated application of EC (1/3) + VC (1/3) + gliricidia GLM (1/3) equivalent to RDF recorded significantly higher available soil N, P₂O₅ and K₂O (282.5, 28.8, 328.3 kg ha^-1, respectively) over FYM @ 5 t ha^-1). + RDF. Combined application of EC (1/3) + VC (1/3) + GLM (1/3) equivalent to RDF and EC (1/3) + VC (1/3) + GLM (1/3) equivalent to RDN recorded significantly higher organic carbon (5.6 and 5.5 g kg^-1). respectively) over FYM @ 5 t ha^-1 + RDF (5.2 g kg^-1). Integrated application of EC (1/3) + VC (1/3) + gliricidia GLM (1/3) equivalent to RDF recorded significantly higher bacteria, fungal, actinomycetes, phosphorus solubilising bacteria, N₂-fixers, enzymes mainly phosphatase and dehydrogenase activity and soil respiration rate (73.19 cfu × 10⁶/ g of soil, 26.84 cfu × 10³/ g of soil, 39.65 cfu × 10²/ g of soil, 26.15 cfu × 10³/ g of soil, 29.52 cfu × 10³/ g of soil, 25.01μ pnp/g of soil/hr, 11.99 μ TPF/g of soil/day and 9.51 mg of C or CO₂/hr/100 g of soil, respectively) at 60 DAS as compared to application of FYM @ 5 t ha^-1 + RDF. Among the different treatment combinations, application of EC (1/3) + VC (1/3) + gliricidia GLM (1/3) equivalent to RDF with foliar spray of Panchagavya @ 5 per cent recorded significantly higher bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, N₂-fixers and P-solubilizer, phosphatase and dehydrogenase enzyme activity and soil respiration rate over RDF + FYM.