Studies on biological decomposition of wheat straw

Summary The incorporation of undecomposed wheat straw in the soil along-with the micro-organisms favourably increased the yield of groundnut crop. An increase of 37 per cent in yield was recorded when wheat straw was inoculated withPenicillium digitatum and the C:P ratio was adjusted to 65. Inoculated treatments of narrower C:P ratio gave a higher yield than wider C:P ratio treatments inoculated with the same cultures. An increase in nitrogen uptake by groundnut plants was recorded due to incorporation of straw alongwith the micro-organisms in soil. The organic carbon and nitrogen content of the soil increased with all the treatments except control. The highest increase in organic carbon and nitrogen of the soil was observed with a treatment of wheat straw of 65 C:P ratio inoculated withS. coccosporum. The yield of wheat crop after groundnut was significantly more with several treatments than control plots. The highest increase of 79 per cent in grain yield of wheat was observed in the plots previouslq received with wheat straw of 200 C:P ratio.This paper is based on the data presented at IV Southern Regional Conference on Microbial Inoculants, held at Parbhani during 3–4 July 1978.