Effect of different manures on periodical availbility of zinc and iron in calcareous soil

Abstract

Incubation study was conducted to study influence of manures on availability of zinc, iron in calcareous soils at College of Agriculture, Pune - 05. The experiment consisted of 9 treatments with 3 replications in which ZnSO4.7H2O @ 20 kg ha-1 and FeSO4.7H2O @ 25 kg ha-1 were incubated with fresh cow dung slurry, FYM, vermicompost and press mud cake for 1 week before application. For incubation study, the soil samples were collected at 15 days interval i.e. 0, 15, 30, 45, 55 days after incubation and analyzed for iron and zinc. Incubation study was conducted by discard method. The experiments was led out in completely randomized design (CRD). The application of fresh cow dung slurry (1:4) @ 500 L ha-1 + FeSO4.7H2O @ 25 kg ha-1 (T2) registered significantly higher release of iron throughout the incubation period over control. The release of iron in this treatment ranged from 5.14 mg kg -1 to 6.74 mg kg -1. The application of (T1) fresh cow dung slurry (1:4) @ 500 L ha-1 + ZnSO4.7H2O @ 20 kg ha-1 showed significantly higher release of zinc in calcareous soil from 0 day to 55 days of incubation. The release of zinc was ranged from 0.58 mg kg -1 to 0.77 mg kg -1. The fresh cow dung slurry (1:4) @ 500 L ha-1 registered higher values of zinc and iron followed by FYM, vermicompost and press mud cake application.