ASSESSING SOIL HEALTH WITH AID OF INACTIVE MICROBIAL POOL AND SOIL MICROBIAL EXPANDING POTENTIAL
ARUN KUMAR *
Kalasalingam School of Agriculture and Horticulture, Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education, Krishnankoil, Tamil Nadu, India
JENCYMOL THOMAS
School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India
ADESH KUMAR
School of Agriculture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India
. JAYANTHI
Kalasalingam School of Computing, Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education, Tamil Nadu, India
ANIL KUMAR
Guru Angad Dev Veterinary & Animal Sciences University, Tarn Taran (Punjab), India
BALKRISHNA S. BHOPLE
Regional Research Station, Punjab Agricultural University, Bhalwal Saukri, Punjab, India
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Assessing soil biological function and health accurately is a very tedious and challenging task as deducing highly diverse soil microbial species function using any single indicator is not conceivable. Moreover, each microbial cell within microbial species is hypothetically in different stages of their life cycle and so metabolically different from each other. Many soil health indicators are available but the variability in space and time is very high and does not provide specific and accurate information on soil biological functions. In this context, we propose the use of inactive microbial cells as biological health indicators with justification. Soil Microbial Expansion i.e. inability of the soil to encourage microbial growth in response to any particular stress environmental factor and then activate microbial growth whenever favourable environmental conditions may serve as a soil health indicator and this parameter may not fluctuate high as compared to the active microbial cell for predicting soil function. We also propose the calibration of soil inactive microbial pool function which may be highly useful for the scientist elsewhere, working on soil microbial ecology and diversity.
Keywords: Soil biological functions, inactive cells, soil health indicators, soil microbial expansion