Microbial activity in soils cultivated with plantain (Musa AAB plantain subgroup cv. Harton) with different vigor of plants

Microbial activity was evaluated in soils cultivated with plantain (Musa AAB plantain subgroup cv. Harton) in lots of plants with high and low vigor (HV and LV, respectively) in an area of the South of Maracaibo's Lake. A systematic sampling was used and 24 soil samples were taken by lot (HV and LV) were measured: total organic carbon (%TOC), microbial biomass carbon (Cmic) and soil respiration (C-CO2). The plant vigor was determined by: number of hands per raceme, height of the plant succession and pseudostem circumference of the mother plant. One way variance analysis was applied, when this was significant Tukey' test was used. In HV, C-CO2 and plants vigor were higher, while Cmic and TOC were lower respect to LV, indicating that the substrate in HV is more labile.