Dynamics of plant residue decomposition and availability of nutrients

Abstract

An experiment in relation to "Dynamics of plant residue decomposition and availability of nutrients" was conducted during the months of August to December of the year 2018 in Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry Section, College of Agriculture, Nagpur. The study includes CO2 evolution study as well as availability of nutrients. Different organic residues like cowdung, paddy straw, wheat straw, sugarcane trash, gliricidia loppings, subabul leaves, soybean stalks and green gram stalks were used in the investigation. CO2 evolution was high on the first day and then it attained an approximately steady rate of evolution up to 10 th day. Thereafter, it started increasing with a considerable amount and reached the peak on 8 th week from where it declined till 120 th day. From the cumulative CO2 evolution of different mixtures, it was found that the highest evolution was generated by green gram stalks mixture (T9) and lowest was recorded by control pot (T1). Nutrient availability was also influence significantly due to different organic residues. The subabul leaves mixture was found superior among the others with respect to available nitrogen content (170.49 kg ha -1 ) and highest P content (16.69 kg ha -1 ) was found in Gliricidia lopping mixture. Where as green gram stalks mixture recorded highest potassium i.e., 395.2 kg ha -1 .