Effect of fertilization with fortified cow dung slurry on soil biological properties in mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco.) orchard

Abstract

The present experiment was carried out during 2015-16 and 2016-17 at All India Coordinated Research Project (Fruits), Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola to study the effect of fertilization with different fortified cow dung slurry on soil biological properties. The experiment was undertaken with ten treatments (T) including a control replicated trice in randomized block design. The observations were recorded for different soil biological properties such as, soil microbial count, soil microbial biomass carbon, dehydrogenase activity, CO2 evolution, Organic carbon. Among the treatments, T7 (Fermented cow dung slurry @ 60 L plant-1 + 100% RDF i.e. 1200:400:400 g NPK plant-1) followed by treatment T8 (Fermented cow dung slurry @ 60 L plant-1 + 75% RDF i.e. 900:300:300 g NPK plant-1) showed significant variation as compared to other treatments.