Impact of tillage practices on physico-chemical and microbiological properties of soil in wheat-pearl-millet cropping system

The impact of two tillage systems: zero-tillage (ZT) and conventional tillage (CT) with cropping pattern i.e. conventional tillage wheat-conventional tillage pearl millet (CTW-CTPM), conventional tillage wheat-zero tillage pearl millet (CTW-ZTPM), zero tillage wheat-conventional tillage pearl millet (ZTW-CTPM) and zero tillage wheat-zero tillage pearl millet (ZTW-ZTPM) on physico-chemical and microbiological properties of sandy textured soil was evaluated at CCSHAU, Regional Research Station at Bawal, Rewari, Haryana. After harvesting of wheat in 2017, triplicate soil samples from undisturbed and disturbed soil were obtained from two different depths (0-15 cm and 15-30 cm), for determination of bulk density (BD), soil organic carbon (SOC), microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen, viable counts of microbes and nutrient release pattern. The bulk density decreased with depth from 0-15 to 15-30 cm under ZT and vice-versa under CT. Values of physico-chemical and microbiological properties were relatively higher under ZTW-ZTPM system at surface layer. SOC was higher at surface layer under ZTW-ZTPM (0.29%) as compared to CTW-CTPM (0.26%) and the respective values at subsurface layer were 0.25 and 0.23%. Thus zero tillage system promoted better physico-chemical and microbiological quality of the soil when compared to the conventional tillage system.