Soil chemical, biological and morphological properties of organic farm soils of Agriculture College, Dhule (M.S.)

The present study was conducted during the year 2015–2016 at Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, College of Agriculture, Dhule with objectives to assess the chemical and biological properties of organic farm soil and to assess the morphology of representative soil. The geo-referenced 65 soil samples were collected from organic farm College of Agriculture, Dhule by using Global Positioning System (GPS). The pH of soil was varied from 7.0 to 7.9, while, EC was varied from 0.58 to 0.69 dSm⁻¹. The organic carbon and calcium carbonate content in soil were varied from 5.9 to 6.7 g kg⁻¹ and 1.1 to 4.2 per cent, respectively. Soils of organic farm were found neutral to slightly alkaline and non saline in nature. While, moderate to moderately high in organic carbon and low to moderately high in calcium carbonate. The available nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium were ranged from 137 to 299, 12.00 to 23.72 and 252.00 to 293.9 kg ha⁻¹, respectively. Which indicates that soils were very low to moderate in available nitrogen, low to moderately high in available phosphorus and high in available potassium. The exchangeable calcium and magnesium and available sulphur were ranged from 21.9 to 28.9, 11.2 to 16.8 cmol (p+) kg⁻¹ and 13.19 to 26.32 mg kg⁻¹, respectively. The 100 per cent soils were sufficient in exchangeable calcium, magnesium and available sulphur. The available iron, manganese, zinc and copper were varied from 4.65 to 17.51, 2.99 to 7.58, 0.57 to 1.78 and 2.65 to 4.82 mg kg⁻¹, respectively. The microbial population like fungi, bacteria and actinomycetes were ranged from 21 to 31 x 10⁴ cfu g⁻¹ soil, 36 to 61 x 10⁷ cfu g⁻¹ soil and 29 to 39 x 10⁶ cfu g⁻¹soil, respectively.