Improving Health of Salt Affected Soils Through Microbial Formulations
Loading...
Date
2020-12
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology Jammu, J&K
Abstract
A pot experiment was conducted during Kharif season of 2019, at the Division of Soil Science and Agriculture Chemistry to study the efficacy of halophilic biofertilizers i.e. Halo-Azo, Halo-Phosphate Solubilizing Bacteria (Halo-PSB), Halo-Zinc and Halo-Mix on the soil health as well as growth and productivity of paddy (PR-113). Regular biofertilizers are ineffective under sodic soils owing to the inability of microbes to tolerate salt stress. It was hypothised that application of halophilic (salt/sodium tolerant) microbes can be beneficial for soil health and crop productivity in sodic soils. Application of these bioformulations showed significant decrease in pH, electrical conductivity and sodium content in sodic soil. Organic carbon, available nitrogen, available phosphorus, available potassium and available zinc values were increased upon application of bioformulations in sodic soil over uninoculated, respectively. Biological parameters such as, microbial biomass carbon, dehydrogenase activity, alkaline phosphatase activity and bacterial count were also increased significantly in sodic soil over corresponding control values. However, microbial biomass carbon, dehydrogenase activity and bacterial count also increased significantly in normal soil, respectively, while there was no significant difference observed in soil alkaline phosphatase activity in normal soils treated with various bioformulations. The soil fungal colonies remained significantly higher in normal soil as compared to sodic soil, even after the application of these bioformulations. These bioformulations showed significant increase in plant growth and yield in terms of plant height, dry matter accumulation, leaf area index, no. of effective panicles/m2, length of panicle, no. of grains per panicle, grain yield, straw yield and 1000 grain weight. No impact of bioformulations was observed among N, P, K content in both grain and straw, both in sodic and non-sodic soils. N, P and K uptake in grain was significantly higher in sodic soil, as a result of inoculation with halophilic formulations, as compared to corresponding control. Nitrogen and phosphorus uptake by straw was also significantly increased in sodic soils upon inoculation with bioformulations over corresponding control, while no significant differences were observed in case of potassium. In nutshell, it was observed that the normal soils performed better on all indicators of soil health and productivity in comparison to sodic soil. Halo-Azo, Halo-PSB, Halo-Zinc and Halo-Mix had a positive impact on soil health of the sodic soils, as indicated by various physico-chemical parameters as well as significantly increased the productivity of PR-113. Exploitation of Halo-Azo, Halo-Phosphate solubilizing bacteria, Halo-Zinc and Halo-Mix as biofertilizers has enormous potential in improving the crop productivity and soil fertility under sodic soil condition owing to its cost-effectiveness.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Preferred for your work_ Improving Health of Salt affected soils through Microbial Formulations, Division of Soil Science and Agriculture Chemistry (2020).