Conservation tillage and weed management effect on soil microflora of soybean-wheat cropping system

A field experiment was conducted during 2013–14 and 2014–15 at Jabalpur to assess the effect of conservation tillage and weed management practices on the total bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes and dehydrogenase activity under soybean - wheat cropping system in vertisols. The results of the investigation revealed that tillage systems to influence significantly the microbial population. Among the tillage treatments, zero tillage + crop residue (soybean) fb zero tillage + crop residue (wheat) had higher bacterial, fungal population and dehydrogenase activity during both the seasons. But actinomycetes population was higher in zero tillage + crop residue (soybean) fb zero tillage (wheat) during both seasons. However, there was no adverse effects of herbicides use in soybean-wheat cropping system on microbial population during both crop seasons except Rabi season 2014 -15 in which bacterial population was reduced by 27.3% when mesosulfuron (12 g/ha) + iodosulfuron (2.4 g/ha) mixture was applied in wheat following application of pendimethalin (750 g/ha) fb imazethapyr (100 g/ha) in preceding soybean crop.