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Soil changes following long-term cultivation of pulses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2009

A. N. GANESHAMURTHY*
Affiliation:
Division of Crop Production, Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kalyanpur, Kanpur 208 024, India

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
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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