Abstract
Organic farming has played a major role in increasing soil organic matter (SOM) and improving soil quality. A comparative study of organic and conventional farming under field conditions was carried out to see the effect of farming practices on culturable and unculturable bacterial diversity and soil quality. Wheat, lentil, vegetable pea and brassica were taken in rotations along with basmati rice in four different plots of organic as well as conventional field. Green manure and vermicompost were used in organic fields while diammonium phosphate (DAP), urea and muriate potash (MOP) were used in conventional fields. Increase in yield was observed in plots under organic farming while yield was dropped in conventional farming along with time. Culturable bacterial diversity was observed higher in organic fields compared to conventional. Changes in rotation practices under organic farming, especially the rice-legume system induced a shift towards rich bacterial diversity, while no significant change in bacterial diversity was observed in conventional farming system. These results were best explained by Shannon weaver’s diversity indices. Total bacterial diversity as assessed by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) confirmed the results obtained by culturable techniques. Under organic farming, different clusters appeared in different crop rotations while in conventional farming, all crop rotations were placed closely in principal component analysis (PCA). Present findings indicated that the inclusion of crop rotations in organic farming practices improves soil quality and enhances rich bacterial diversity along with the sustainable increase in crop productivity over a period as compared to conventional farming.
doi: 10.17756/jfcn.2023-s1-077
Citation: Bhatt M, Mehta CM, Bhatt D, Sharma A, Singh DK, et al. 2023. Effect of Crop Rotation on Bacterial Diversity and Soil Quality under Organic and Conventional Farming System. J Food Chem Nanotechnol 9(S1): S612-S619.
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