Vol. 12, Issue 6 (2023)

Author(s):
Bindushree C, Lakshmipathi RN, Nagaraju MC and Siddu M

Abstract:
The present study was conducted to study the biological properties of soil under natural farming system, where only indigenous cow dung based on-farm produced formulations viz. jeevamrutha, beejamrutha and ghanajeevamrutha were used in comparison to conventional farming (CF) practices with recommended fertilizer and pesticide doses in direct seeded rice. ZBNF resulted in higher population of beneficial microorganisms like bacteria, fungi, actinobacteria, phosphate solubilizing microorganisms and N-fixers. Highest population of the total bacteria (54.13 x106 CFU/g soil), fungi (25.86 x104 CFU/g soil), actinobacteria (7.13 x103 CFU/g soil) and free-living N-fixers (76.83 x105 CFU/g soil) was observed in the natural farming treatment as given by Shri. Subhash Palekar and was significantly higher compared to all the other treatments. Least soil microbial population viz., total bacteria (37.40 x106 CFU/g soil), fungi (20.13 x104 CFU/g soil), actinobacteria (2.97 x103 CFU/g soil) and N-fixers (36.43 x105 CFU/g soil) was observed in treatment absolute control.