Soil properties of rhizosphere under maize based cropping system

Abstract

This field experiment was conducted for two consecutive years during 2014-15 and 2015-16 on loamy sand soil of Agronomy Main Research Farm, Department of Agronomy, Central Research Station of the Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar. The treatments consisted of three legumes as main plot treatments taken up during the kharif season and two residue management practices as sub-plot treatments and four nitrogen levels as sub-sub plot treatments. It shows that soil microbial population increased linearly over the initial level by taking a legume-cereal sequence. Further the incorporation of legume residues improved the microbial population over no residue incorporation treatments. Decreased trend of the total microbes was seen after the harvest of maize. An increase in available N, P and K was noticed with increase in nitrogen levels during both the years of study. After the harvest, cowpea recorded the highest available soil nitrogen values of 278 and 284 kg ha-1 in the first and second year respectively as well as highest total bacterial count of 228 x 104 g-1 of soil was recorded with cowpea residue incorporation with nitrogen application at 180 kg ha-1.