Variation in soil organic carbon content and its dynamics under different cropping sequences and nutrient management practices in middle indo-gangetic plains

Abstract

In the era when the population is escalating at a rapid rate while on other hand the land for cultivation is declining, there is tremendous pressure in high fertile lands like the Indo-Gangetic plains to produce food grains with intensified cropping. This intensification of agriculture has lead to stagnation of yield in cropping systems due to decline in soil organic matter and nutrient cycling. Soil organic carbon along with the microbial biomass are important indicators of physical, chemical as well as biological properties. This two parameters can be determined by various methods like dehydrogenase activity, soil respiration rate and microbial biomass calculation by chloroform and irradiation method. The current paper comprises of the study of different cropping systems in the Indo Gangetic plains in order to analyze its different organic carbon pool, relationship between them and different land use system that influences them. It was noticed that the system receiving both organic and inorganic fertilizers had higher total organic carbon, higher respiration rate, labile carbon along with higher microbial population. Under the nutrient management consisting of FYM + NPK fertilizer treatment there was increasing microbial biomass carbon and total organic carbon over other treatments because of more or higher root biomass. Therefore for a healthy soil and sustainable production system in high fertile and demand area of Indo Gangetic plain it is necessary to assess the soil organic carbon pools and maintain them by using integrated nutrient management.