Soil quality and plant microbe interactions in rhizosphere

Abstract

The rhizosphere is a microenvironment contrastingly different from non- rhizosphere soil. The high microbial activity in the rhizosphere leads to better cycling and availability of nutrients and improves chemical soil quality indicators. The biological soil quality indicators are improved in rhizosphere due to enhanced microbial activities either in terms of microbial biomass carbon, dehydrogenase activity, activities of various hydrolytic enzymes e.g., phosphatases, sulfatases, proteases, amidases and glucosidase responsible for breakdown of organically bound nutrients in soil. Over the last two decades lot of interests developed on soil quality research due to degradation in soil quality by anthropogenic activity. Besides being a rich source of carbon and energy for the heterotrophic organisms, plant roots exudates secrete a variety of carbonaceous materials that can act as a binding agent to increase stability of soil aggregates. The adoption of proper soil, crop, nutrient and organic manure management strategies has the direct impact on the soil quality. However, it may also be affected indirectly by the plant microbe interactions. This article focuses on induced changes in the rhizosphere ecology by plant microbe interactions and also to integrate these changes to soil quality indicator of unifi ed soil in the sustainable agriculture soil management practices.