Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
governing the soil fertility dynamics
(
Table 11.2
)
. The maximum number
of colonies of
Bacillus mycoides
(8-9 × 10
3
cfu g
-1
soil) was observed
during September month in a air temperature range of 21.7-32.3°C and
soil temperature of 27.6-29.5°C with a relative humidity of 82.7-88.7%,
irrespective of orchard site, though both the orchard sites different con-
siderably in the agropedolgical setup. While maximum colonies of
Pseu-
domonas fluorescens
(10 × 10
3
cfu g
-1
soil) was observed during January
month with air temperature range of 11.2-27.3°C and soil temperature of
23.0-23.5°C. The maxima for colonies of
Bacillus polymyxa
(10-25 × 10
3
cfu g
-1
) and
Bacillus licheniformis
, (12 × 10
3
cfu g
-1
) was observed during
December month having air temperature range of 11.7-35.0°C
and soil
temperature range of 19.2-29.6°C with relative humidity of 53.6-78.8%.
Similarly, during the same December month, the maximum colony of
Azo-
tobacter
chroococcum
(18-24 × 10
3
cfu g
-1
soil) and
Trichoderma harzia-
num
(18-22 × 10
3
cfu g
-1
soil) was observed. But, with regard to
Tricho-
derma harzianum
, at site 1 December witnessed the maximum colony (22
× 10
3
cfu g
-1
soil). Interestingly, the colonies of most of the microbial spe-
cies declined sharply towards March witnessing higher air as well a soil
temperature with substantially much reduced relative humidity.
11.6
CLIMATE VERSUS NUTRIENT DYNAMICS
Climate induced variation in soil temperature has shown strong influ-
ence on nutrient dynamics. The soil properties such as soil pH and EC,
remained unaffected by any changes in climatic features. However, dy-
namics of nutrient availability, both macro as well as micronutrients were
considerably unaffected by maximum air temperature, relative humidity
to November month showed no changes, but thereafter, it increased to
128.8 mg kg
-1
at Pipla and 126.3 mg kg
-1
at Jarud with the rise in soil
temperature from 19.2 to 34.5°C and from 29.6 to 30.7°C, respectively,
corresponding to reduction in NH
4
OAc-K from 202.3-191.4 mg kg
-1
and
from 198.7 to 176.1 mg kg
-1
although with a any distinct relation between
these climate-soil parameters versus Olsen-P. On the other hand, with re-
gard to DTPA-extractable micronutrients, except DTPA-Fe, none of the
micronutrients like Mn, Cu and Zn displayed any visible relation with any
of the soil-climatic parameters.