Impact of STCR based long term integrated management practices on soil chemical properties and yield attributing parameters of wheat and pearl millet in semi-arid North-West India

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out on the ongoing long term experiment of STCR initiated originally in 2009 to study the maintenance of soil fertility and yield sustainability at Research Farm of Department of Soil Science, CCS, HAU, Hisar. The experiment was planned in a randomized block design with four replication and seven treatments viz. T1-control, T2- FYM @ 15 t ha-1, T3-RDN & P, T4-STCR with TY 5.5/3.3 t ha-1, T5-STCR with TY 6.0/3.5 t ha-1, T6-STCR-IPNS with TY 5.5/3.0 FYM and T7-STCR-IPNS with 6.0/3.5 FYM yield targets. FYM @ 15 t ha-1 were applied in rabi and kharif season in T2, T6 & T7 plots. The treatments where FYM @ 15 t ha-1 was applied approximately 22 kg N & 15 t ha-1 was reduced from fertilizer nutrients. The results of the experiment revealed that the chemical and biological properties of the soil such as organic carbon, microbial biomass carbon, available NPK and micronutrients increased significantly with addition in FYM @ 15 t ha-1 in rabi and kharif both at surface and subsurface soils. Chemical and biological properties of the soil improved with addition of FYM continuously on long term basis which is due to improvement of physical structure of the soil that may results in more uptakes of nutrients by plants, thus improved the yield attributing parameters of wheat and pearl millet.