Allelopathy Journal

Soil sickness is serious problem in Modern Agriculture due to monocropping and intensive culture systems. Besides, the deterioration of soil physicochemical properties, imbalance of soil microbial community and autotoxicity are also involved in the soil sickness problem. Monocropping system leads to decrease in the population of beneficial microbes such as fluorescent Pseudomonas fluorescence and an increase in the population of pathogens in soil. In addition, some plants show autotoxic potential by processes such as leaching from the living as well as dead plant parts, root exudates, decomposition and volatilization. The occurrence of soil sickness is greatly influenced by physicochemical properties of soil, soil microbial community structure and environmental factors. There are interactions between the autotoxins and soil-borne pathogens etc, which aggravate the soil sickness. However, there is great possibility to improve the productivity of agro-ecosystems by managing the soil microorganisms and breeding cultivars with resistance to autotoxins but this requires more detailed investigations of these biologically complex systems and refinement of currently available methodologies.