Impact of various fertigation levels and weed management practices on the soil rhizosphere microbiome of chickpea

Abstract

A field investigation was carried out at the experimental field of the AICRP on Weed Management of the Department of Agronomy, Dr. P.D.K.V., Akola (M.S.), India, during rabi 2021–22, to study the impact of various fertigation levels and weed management practices on the microbial population dynamics of the rhizospheric soil of chickpea. The experiment was designed in a split-plot design with four main plot treatments of fertigation levels and five sub-plot weed management treatments, which were replicated three times. The recommended dose of fertilizer applied was 25:50:30 NPK kg/ha. Among the weed management treatments, results clearly showed that treatment, weedy check, recorded significantly higher microbial populations at all stages of observation, which was found to be on par with the treatment of farmer practices, i.e., one hoeing at 30 DAS, fb 2 HW at 20 and 40 DAS. Whereas, among weed management treatments using herbicides, pendimethalin 1 kg/ha PE fb topramezone 0.0136 kg/ha at 30-35 DAS recorded a higher microbial count as compared to all other herbicide treatments, which was followed by the treatment of oxyfluorfen 0.140 kg/ha PE fb quizalofop-ethyl 0.050 kg/ha at 20–25 DAS. However, the effect of various fertigation levels as well as the interaction of fertigation levels and weed management treatments on the microbial count was found to be non-significant.