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Plant Science Today (PST)

Research Articles

Vol. 12 No. sp1 (2025): Recent Advances in Agriculture by Young Minds - II

Impact of various crop establishment methods on soil organic carbon and nitrogen fractions in an alluvial soil

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14719/pst.9307
Submitted
5 May 2025
Published
10-10-2025

Abstract

Adoption of conservation agriculture (CA) based crop establishment methods involving legumes enhances soil organic nitrogen and carbon fractions by promoting microbial activity and residue retention, thereby improving nutrient availability and crop productivity in alluvial soils. A field experiment was conducted at Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, in 2023 to evaluate the effects of eight crop establishment methods combining DSR or transplanted puddled rice (TPR), followed by CTW (conventionally tilled wheat) or ZTW (zero tilled wheat) and Fallow (F) or Green Gram (GG). The treatments were laid out in a factorial randomized block design. Soil samples were analyzed for labile and stable SOC and organic and inorganic nitrogen fractions after the rice harvest. Results showed significant improvement in very labile carbon (29.34 %) and labile carbon (27.17 %) under Dry DSR-ZTW-GG (T4) over conventional TPR-CTW-F (T5). Similarly, T4 recorded the highest nitrate-N (31.91 mg kg-1) and hydrolysable ammoniacal-N (149.53 mg kg-1). The rice grain yield ranged from 4276.67 to 5193.33 kg ha-1, with T8 (TPR-ZTW-GG) and T7 (TPR-CTW-GG) outperforming others, but statistically at par with T4. The rice yield was found to be strongly and positively correlated (p=0.01) with hydrolysable NH4+-N (r = 0.879), amino acid-N (r = 0.893), very labile carbon (r = 0.914) and labile carbon (r = 0.872), indicating that these fractions contribute the most towards yield performance. Integration of DSR, zero tillage wheat and legume in rotation significantly improves SOC and N dynamics while enhancing productivity, suggesting a promising alternative to conventional puddled rice systems which ultimately leads to sustainable alluvial soil management.

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