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Soil changes following long-term cultivation of pulses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2009

A. N. GANESHAMURTHY
A. N. GANESHAMURTHY*
Affiliation:
Division of Crop Production, Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kalyanpur, Kanpur 208 024, India
*
Email: dr.angmurthy@rediffmail.com.
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Summary

Studies were conducted on Entisols to understand the effects of continuous pulse cultivation on soil chemical, physical and biological properties by comparing with continuous non-pulse crops and uncultivated soils. Soils of a Typic Ustochrept, developed from the same parent material, from 16-year-old pulse cultivation fields, non-pulse crop fields and uncultivated fallow fields in a location with uniform topography were analysed using a polyphasic approach combining traditional soil physical and chemical analysis, culture-dependent and independent microbiological analysis and enzymatic analysis. Among the soil physical properties, only soil aggregate stability and soil compaction showed significant improvement in soils under pulses than non-pulse crops. Compared to uncultivated fallows, the soil pH after pulse cultivation was about 1 unit lower while non-pulse crop cultivation reduced it by 0·36. The chemical and biological variables that contribute most to the discrimination of the pulses effect and non-pulse crops effect on soil quality are organic carbon (C), microbial biomass C, nitrogen (N) and biomass ninhydrin-N, and secondary variables related to N cycle:nitrate (NO3–N), organic and total soluble N. The enzyme activities were significantly higher in soils after pulse cultivation than after non-pulse crops or uncultivated fallow. The soil quality of pulse cultivation fields seems to be markedly different to that of non-pulse crop fields and uncultivated fallows in terms of all the variables studied.

Type
Crops and Soils
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 147 , Issue 6 , December 2009 , pp. 699 - 706
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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Footnotes

Present address: Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Hessaraghatta, Bangalore 560 089, India.

References

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