Impact of crop residues incorporation/retention on soil health

Abstract

Retention/incorporation of the crop residues in the field will help to improve soil health, reduce nutrient consumption and clean the environment instead of burning them in open, and mitigate the adverse effects of global warming. Enormous quantity of rice straw after harvesting of rice has to be mopped up in about 15–20 days to sow succeeding wheat crop. Majority of farmers resort to burning of rice residue leading to environment pollution, human/animal health hazards and cause substantial loss of plant nutrients. Amongst various paddy straw management practices, adoption of in situ (incorporation or surface retention) residue retention will bring positive effect on crop yield and soil health on long term basis. The status of soil organic carbon (SOC) is the best indicator of soil health and it improved from an initial level of 0.33% in straw removal plots to nearly 0.75% in straw retained/incorporated plots (12 years long-term experiment). The status of available N, P and K in the soil improved significantly in straw-managed plots over straw removal plots. These straw management technologies reduced bulk density considerably, improved water holding capacity and significantly improved biological properties like MBC, fungal count, bacterial count, actinobacterial count and DHA activity over straw removal.