Assessment of Soil Chemical Quality, Soil Microbial Population and Plant Growth Parameters Under Organic and Conventiona
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FULL-LENGTH RESEARCH ARTICLE
Assessment of Soil Chemical Quality, Soil Microbial Population and Plant Growth Parameters Under Organic and Conventional Rice–Wheat Cropping System Reeta Goel1 • Prasenjit Debbarma2 • Puja Kumari1 • Deep Chandra Suyal3 Saurabh Kumar1 • B. S. Mahapatra4
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Received: 29 June 2019 / Accepted: 31 August 2020 Ó NAAS (National Academy of Agricultural Sciences) 2020
Abstract Low-input organic agriculture is preferred over conventional agriculture for its sustainability and environmentally friendly nature. In this investigation, a field trial experiment was conducted to unravel the effect of conventional and organic farming practices on soil health and productivity under rice–wheat cropping system. Moreover, the dynamics of microbial communities was analyzed under both the farming systems using denaturant gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and qRT-PCR techniques. This study found that the soil organic carbon was significantly higher under the organic farming system (0.63 ± 0.3% in wheat and 0.88 ± 0.2% in rice) than the conventional farming system (0.2 ± 0.1% in wheat and 0.63 ± 0.3% in rice). Quantification of 16S rDNA and nifH genes revealed higher abundance of total bacteria (2.52 9 1011 in rice and 2.40 9 1011 in wheat) as well as diazotrophs (8 9 106 in rice and 1.8 9 107 in wheat) under the organic farming system. Therefore, higher copy number of nifH genes in organic soil indicated that the diazotrophs played a significant role in supplying N for plant growth. DGGE band pattern authenticated that the bacterial diversity was higher under organic farming system. This study also showed that conventional practice gives comparatively more yield i.e. 0.29 t ha-1 extra rice and 2.86 t ha-1 more wheat than in organic farming. All other plant growth parameters are found higher in organic except nitrate reductase activity. This study signifies that organic farming is sustainable and can substitute the conventional practice for cost-effective, beneficial soil health and environmental sustainability for the long term. Keywords Organic farming Conventional farming nifH Soil health 16S rDNA DGGE
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s40003-020-00499-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Abbreviations SOC Soil organic carbon NPK Nitrogen phosphorous potassium NN Nitrate nitrogen DGGE Denaturant gradient gel electrophoresis NR Nitrate reductase
& Prasenjit Debbarma [email protected] 1
Department of Microbiology, College of Basic Sciences and Humanities, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand 263145, India
2
School of Agriculture, Graphic Era Hill University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248002, India
Introduction
Department of Microbiology, Akal College of Basic Sciences, Eternal University, Baru Sahib, Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh 173101, India
Population explosion around the globe, especially in India, since last decades demands increased productivity fro
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