Impacts of long-term rice-based organic farming on fractions and forms of soil organic carbon and nitrogen in the Indo-Gangetic Plain
Amrit Lal Meena A B , R. N. Pandey B , Dinesh Kumar C , V. K. Sharma B , M. D. Meena
D * , Minakshi Karwal E , Debashis Dutta A , L. K. Meena A , Ekta Narwal F , R. P. Mishra A , A. S. Panwar A and A. Ghosh G
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A ICAR-Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research, Modipuram, Meerut 250110, India.
B Division of SSAC, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India.
C Division of Agronomy, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India.
D ICAR-Directorate of Rapeseed-Mustard Research, Bharatpur 321303, India.
E KIET Group of Institutions, Ghaziabad, Delhi-NCR 201206, India.
F Division of Microbiology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India.
G ICAR-Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh 284003, India.
Soil Research 61(2) 159-175 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR21048
Submitted: 20 February 2021 Accepted: 25 August 2022 Published: 26 September 2022
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing
Abstract
The present study aimed to appraise the long-term effects of organics, crop residues, and biofertilisers on soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) pools for sustainable crop production and changes in soil quality under long-term organic farming practices. Hence, we studied the soil C and N pools and their sensitivity indices as influenced by a different combination of farmyard manure, vermicompost, biofertilisers, and crop residue of rice, wheat, and mungbean, under long-term rice–wheat–mungbean (RWMCS) and rice–wheat (RWCS) cropping systems in an Inceptisol of India. Total soil organic C increased by 78% and 104% for RWMCS and 94% and 123% for RWCS with FYM + crop residue + biofertilisers and vermicompost + crop residue + biofertilisers, respectively over unfertilised control plots of RWMCS. The highly labile C and microbial biomass C were highly sensitive to management practices compared to total organic C and less labile C fractions. Integrated application of manures and crop residues in FYM + crop residue and VC + crop residue resulted in significantly higher total N, labile N, and mineral N for both cropping systems. Higher values of C and N management indexes were observed with FYM + crop residue + biofertilisers and VC + crop residue + biofertiliser in both cropping systems than other treatments. Integrated use of organic sources had higher N fractions than the unfertilised control plots, indicating that long-term conjoint use of organics, crop residues, and biofertilisers could sustain crop production and soil quality.
Keywords: carbon management index, carbon pools, microbial biomass carbon, nitrogen management index, nitrogen pools, rice yield, sensitivity index, yield sustainability index.
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