STUDY ON GROWTH CHARACTERISTICS OF TREE LEGUME SEEDLINGS AND NUTRIENT STATUS OF THEIR RHIZOSPHERIC SOIL IN ARID AND SEMI ARID REGIONOF RAJASTHAN

摘要

An extensive survey was done to know the diversity of legume and non legume tree plant species growing at the selected experimental sites in arid and semi-arid regions of Rajasthan. Sampling for vegetative and nodular characters, seedlings of only twospecies viz., Leucaena leucocephala and Sesbania sesban was uprooted and their values for studied parameters was assessed. Nutrient status of randomly collected composite rhizospheric soil was also analysed. It was observed that in Bikaner region. Prosopis cineraria was found to be dominant tree compared to other legume trees followed by Albizia lebbeck, which was observed as co-dominani tree. No dominant tree legume was reported in Ajmer region. Acacia niloiica, Prosopis juliflora, Leucaena leucocephala and a non-legume. Azadirachla. indica were almost equally distributed in studied experiment sites. Ajmer and Bikaner region soils were characterized as loose sandy on the basis of soil texture and bulk density. Relatively high proportion of availablenitrogen and phosphate content were found in rhizospheric soils of Ajmer region as compared to Bikaner region. Overall comparison of the data pertaining to nodular and vegetative parameters of the Leucaena and Sesbania seedlings suggested that better nodular frequency and vegetative growth was shown by those collected from Parabatpura site in Aimer region which might be correlated to the better nutrient status of that site soil compared to nutrient status of other site soil.