Soil physical quality as affected by management practices under maize–wheat system

Abstract

Soil physical quality is one of the three important aspects of soil quality, besides biological and chemical quality. Decline in soil physical quality can have serious consequences on biological and chemical properties thereby making it relevant to study soil physical quality for maintaining soil health in long run. Changes in this property of soil affect the productivity of crops. In this investigation, Dexter S theory has been applied to evaluate the soil physical quality in maize–wheat system under two tillage/land configurations namely raised bed planting (BP) and conventional tillage (CT) and nine nutrient treatments viz (1) T1—control (crop without fertilizer), (2) T2—100 % recommended dose of nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) and potassium (K), (3) T3—100 % NPK (25 % N substituted by farmyard manure (FYM)), (4) T4—100 % NPK + green manure (Sesbania), (5) T5—100 % NPK (25 % N substituted by biofertilizer), (6) T6—100 % NPK (25 % N substituted by sewage sludge), (7) T7—100 % NPK + crop residue incorporated (from previous crop), (8) T8—100 % organic source (50 % FYM + 25 % bio-fertilizer + 25 % crop residue), and (9) T9—no crop no fertilizer; were identified for this study. BP significantly improved the soil physical quality compared to CT. Within nutrient treatments, S index was highest in T8 followed by the T5, whereas lowest in T1. There is high and significant correlation between S index and soil physical parameter and crop yield which shows that S index can be used effectively for quantifying soil physical quality under diverse environments vis-à-vis crop yield.