Soil Enzyme Activity as Affected by Tillage and Residue Management Practices under Diverse Cropping Systems

Abstract

Soil enzyme plays a crucial role in nutrient transformation in soil hence referred as an important factor of crop productivity. This review aims to strengthen the state of knowledge of different soil enzymes responsible for transformation of carbon (β- glucosidase, xylanase and cellulase), nitrogen (urease and amidohydrolases), phosphorus (phosphatases and phytase) and organic matter decomposition in soil (dehydrogenase, fluorescein diacetate, phenol oxidase and peroxidase). This review further summarise the effect of tillage and residue management on soil enzyme activities from different literatures and also focuses on the potential use of soil enzymes as soil quality indicator under diverse management practices in various cropping systems. From this study it can be suggested that soil management practices clearly influences soil enzyme activity. All the studied enzymes increase with residue retention and reduction in tillage intensity as compared with intensive tillage practices. It was concluded that soil enzyme activity can potentially used to distinguish sustainable management practices from unsustainable one, hence could be useful to determine soil quality in diverse cropping systems under wide range of agro-climatic conditions.