SOIL MICROORGANISMS AS A TOOL FOR ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF ARABLE PRACTICES ON SOIL QUALITY

Abstract

Long-term field experiments were used to examine the possibility of using soil microbial biomass and basal respiration as indicators for assessing the impact of arable practices on soil quality. These microbial parameters were found to be sensitive and with sufficient power to discriminate a large spectrum of impacts from such practices as continuous black fallow, continuous crops, conventional and ecological crop rotations with or without manure and/ or mineral amendments. Significant correlations were observed between the microbial parameters and the soil organic matter content, that provided possibilities of using microbial indicators for timely assessing, monitoring and forecasting the impact of arable practices on soil organic matter.

Keywords

• soil microbial biomass
• basal respiration
• metabolic quotient
• soil organic matter
• soil quality assessments
• microbiological indicators of soil quality
• long-term field experiments