Soil Fertility Status of Soybean (Glycine max L.) Growing Soils of Malwa Plateau, Madhya Pradesh

摘要

Soil fertility plays an important role in sustaining crop productivity of an area under favourable edaphic factors and as information on the nutritional status of soils can go a long way in developing economically viable alternatives for management ofdeficient nutrients in the soil. Introduction of soybean has led to a shift in the cropping system from fallow-wheat/ chickpea to soybean-wheat/chickpea system (Jagdish Prasad and Singh 1997). This has resulted in an enhancement in the cropping intensity and increase in the profitability per unit land area but frequent growing of soybean has induced widespread deficiency of nutrients in soils of Malwa Pleateau (Paroda 1999) and in turn plateauing/decrease in productivity. The imbalance use of fertilizers has further aggravated the multiple nutrient deficiencies, specifically sulphur (S) deficiency which is most vital for the growth and development of soybean crop and resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses (Scherer 2001; Kruse et al. 2007). Keeping this in mind the present study was carried out to assess the soil fertility status of soybean-growing soils of Malwa Plateau of Madhya Pradesh and to correlate the availability of nutrients with some relevant soil properties so that corrective measurescan be undertaken.