Ajeet Kumar, J. Yadav and Awtar Singh
Abstract
To improve the sustainability and environmental accountability of soil there is a need to develop a set of soil health indicators that integrate physical, chemical and biological soil properties. The soils of Vindhyan Zone of Mirzapur district was selected for the study. 30 surface soil (0-15cm) samples were collected from the cultivated land and analysed for pH, EC, available N, P, K content and biological health status of soil. All the soil samples having the low organic carbon status. The availability of nitrogen vary from 125 to 276 kg ha-1, phosphorus ranges from 14.4 to 51.1 kg ha-1, while range of potassium vary between 75.8 to 586 kg ha-1. The Dehydrogenase activity of soil vary from 24.0-58.33 μg TPF g-1 soil day-1, urease activity of soil vary from 93.6 to 284.3 μg urea hydrolysed g-1 soil h-1, alkaline phosphatase activity vary from 84.3 to 245.67 μg PNP g-1 soil h-1, whereas acid phosphatase activity from 76.3 to 163.6 μg PNP g-1 soil h-1. Soil microbial biomass carbon (SMBC) and soil respiration values of the soils vary from 104.6 to 260.0 mg C kg-1 soil and 0.1879 to 0.4562 mg CO2-C g-1 soil day-1 respectively. Microbial population of bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes in the soils vary from 14.0 to 40.30 x 106 CFU g-1 soil, 6.7 to 29.3 x 104 CFU g-1 soil and 9.3 to 26.7 x 105 CFU g-1 soil respectively.