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Abstract

Soil microbial communities are arguably the most diverse communities on earth and soil represents a favorable habitat for micro-organisms. In the present investigation, the extent of the diversity of microorganisms in organic soil was seen as enormous comparatively in inorganic soil. Soil was collected by simple random sampling directly from Afaka farm, Kaduna State, Nigeria. Samples were processed using a soil dilution plate method. The results showed that the abundance of different microbial groups and total microbial biomass was generally increased in soil with organic fertilizer in comparison to soil with inorganic fertilizer. It was found that the soil with organic manures was rich in bacteria diversity (168 colonies), fungal diversity (25 colonies) and other micro-organisms. Comparatively, in the soil with inorganic fertilizer lower colonies of bacteria (80) and fungi (13) were observed. The total population colonies of micro-organisms obtained in soil with organic fertilizer was 293 while the soil with inorganic being 93. Statistically, there was a significant difference (P 0.05) between the microbial populations of the two soil types. The most widely distributed and abundant colony forming taxa were Penicillium Spp. and Aspergillus Spp (13 colonies) in both soil sample fields. Thus organic fertilizers from this study show a greater microbial diversity when compared with the field sample with inorganic fertilizer. This means more decomposition, biotrans formation, more nitrogen content and higher fertility in the organically fertilized soil samples.