Biological Activity as Influenced by Cropping Systems in Various Farming System under Southern Transition Zone of Karnataka

Soils are the basic unit of the agricultural production, maintaining the soil health with respect to nutrient availability and organic carbon content infers the soil suitability to grow the crops. To protect the soil native population of microorganisms and their efficiency, selection of suitable farming types and cropping systems are very much important in order to harvest much benefits without compromising degradation, in that view an experiment was executed at Zonal Agricultural and Horticultural Research Station, Navile, Shivamogga during Kharif2021 and 2022 in sandy loam soils under split plot design, where main plots comprises conventional, organic and natural farming along with subplots consists of sole crops of groundnut, maize, finger millet, intercropping of maize and finger millet with groundnut. Organic farming recorded higher population of beneficial microorganisms (N fixers, P and K solubalizers) and higher enzymatic activity (dehydrogenase, alkaline and acid phosphatase) which was significantly higher than conventional farming. Among cropping systems, intercropping method beneficial microorganisms and enzymatic activity were significantly higher than sole crops, particularly in maize as an intercrop. Irrespective of the farming types and cropping systems biological activities were higher at 67 days.